


The Road to Knowhere

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: The Enhancile War [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Groping, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Anal Sex, Cliffhangers, Extremis, Galactic politics, M/M, Massage, Mutual Pining, Science Fiction Tropes, Space Pirates, but it's our own version of it, good guy!loki, i'd say we're sorry but we're not really, references to at least five different scifi shows, so many cliffhanger chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:59:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 69,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Enhanced humans are not considered legally human; they are the property of the government or the company that created them. The crew of the Avenger consists of enhanced humans who have escaped/run away and are trying to fly under the radar.Tony Stark was kidnapped and enhanced against his will. No longer considered human, Tony had taken up with a pirate crew to try to bring change to the galaxy.Obediah Stane has taken over Stark Industries and wants to sell the secrets of Extremis to the highest bidder. The only successful enhancile, Maya Henson, escaped with the functional prototype in her own veins.Tony and Obie are racing to find Maya. Tony's life just got complicated, however, with the salvage of a Hydra warship and the Asset they find inside.





	1. Chapter 1

There was a faint _whump_ as the BEHS disengaged and the short range grav-drive kicked in. Everyone on the ship would have felt it except, perhaps, in cargo. For Tony, the ship’s mechanic, there was an additional, quivering sensation in his chest. His heart pulsed a few times in sympathy. If Bruce ever happened to be giving him a checkup when the drive engaged, it would probably look something like arrhythmia. Fortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.

Tony burped. Ug. Tasted like metal. And coconut.

“How’s it look out there?” The captain, Steve Rogers, was two decks above, near the piloting couches, but Tony had installed intercoms, pretty much first thing. As the engineer and mechanic, he really needed to know what was going on as soon as it happened, rather than when someone remembered to shout down to the engine room. It was just more efficient.

“Good idea to drop out early,” Clint, the pilot, said. Clint was lackadaisical, quirky, lazy, and a total human dumpster fire, but he was also the best pilot Tony had ever even heard of. “There’s debris everywhere. Flying direct into this would be a drendump. We’re gonna need the shuttle. And time.”

“Shuttle I got. Time’s a premium.” Steve banged on the interior hull, his way of making sure Tony was paying attention. “Your friend had good intel this time. Something happened here all right. We should be able to clear quite a haul.”

Pepper _always_ had good intel; it was just that sometimes it was only good for Tony instead of good for the merry band of scavengers and not-quite-pirates that Tony had fallen in with. “Glad to hear it, Cap,” Tony said back up the line. “I’ll be sure to return your compliments, next time we get to a shielded signal.”

This time, it had been a report about a Hydra vessel that had mysteriously stopped reporting in, mid-transit. Pepper had used Tony’s private servers to dig up their itinerary and manifest, and then had JARVIS cross-reference that with the time of their last transmission and probable travel speed to arrive at their likely path of drift, if something had stopped the engines. And lo, here they were, a whole ship full of salvage before them.

Tony needed to be on the crew that went aboard so he could ransack their computers as well as their cargo hold. “Save a spot for me on the shuttle,” he told Steve. “I could use some repair parts for the engine.”

“Suit up,” Steve told him. “We’ve got life support in some compartments, but the gravity’s shot. Poor bastards. They’re probably splattered all over the bulkheads.”

“You always know how to cheer a guy up, Cap,” Tony quipped. Tony had no love for Hydra, but he knew Steve harbored a boundless, merciless hatred of them. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was Hydra that Steve was running from, but he’d seen the SHIELD tattoo on the captain’s spine.

“No life readings at all, Cap?” Bruce piped up.  Bruce, their resident medic and biologic expert, was a little more forgiving. The last time they’d actually run into Hydra, Bruce had insisted on fixing one guy’s broken leg. Admittedly, Cap was the one who’d shot him, and then they’d left the guy locked in a basement anyway, but he’d probably be able to walk again. After a long, painful recovery.

“There’s a couple of escape pods that jettisoned. Two have life support going, but they’re shielded. If you’re feeling all lady of mercy, you’ll probably want to latch ‘em on.” That was Clint again, tapping at the sensor array. Tony had made a lot of improvement to the array when he’d first come aboard, helpful for both his own agenda and the crew’s interests. Win-win.

“I’ll leave you to the mission of mercy, Brucie,” Tony said, already pulling on his EVA suit. “We need some lightwave converters or we’re going to implode sometime in the next dozen jumps.”

“You said those converters were good for another fifty trips,” Steve said. Tony could almost imagine the scowl coming through the floor. Steve was a champion scowler. He was also a tightwad of unbelievable aptitude, and probably had a little more faith in Tony’s repairs than even Tony did. Genius or not, parts wore out.

“Yeah, about thirty jumps ago,” Tony pointed out. “Relax, I was going to say something the next time we made port. And now we won’t have to. Look how new that ship is; it’ll have practically spit-polished parts.”

“Someone still blew it to bits,” Natasha said. She wasn’t on the intercom. Once again, she’d managed to sneak up on him in engineering. She had a full combat EVA on, she should not have been able to sneak anywhere, much less tromp across his metal floor in frelling magboots without him hearing her. She was some sort of creepy little spy, that’s what she was. “Little bitty bits, really. There’s not a single deck fully intact. I’m more worried that whatever did it might still be out there.”

Tony was hoping to find out what had done it -- and if it matched the profile of the ghost he was chasing, that he could find some leads on where it had gone -- but that wasn’t information he wanted to share. “There’s no life signs,” he pointed out instead. “Unless we’ve got a killer robot on our hands, I think we’re safe.”

Natasha nodded, the motion exaggerated by her suit. “Come on, you buckled in there yet? Probably going to need that deft touch of yours to knock on the door, so you decompressing would be bad for our profit margin.” Tony never knew if she was kidding or not, but he turned around to let her do an inspection of his suit’s seals; not like the onboard wasn’t registering green, but Natasha was fanatical about a visual inspection.

There were days when he wanted to ask her why, but so far, he’d always thought better of that notion.

Seals inspected, she followed him out of engineering and up to the shuttle bay. “Anything in particular Cap’s got his eye on, here?” Tony wondered.

“Med packs,” Natasha said. “This is a warship, they’ll have the good stuff. Food. Air and ice. We can always hit up a station on the way in to Asgard. Stations always need air and ice. Weapons. Ion chargers. Any luxuries. Check for secret compartments. Even Hydra officers take bribes sometimes.”

“Copy that,” Tony agreed. Hydra Command took bribes sometimes, too. And the shipping manifest had seemed a little weird. Nothing Tony had been able to put his finger on, just enough to give him a feeling. Ships went missing all time time, out in the black -- there were a thousand ways for a ship’s grav thrust or BEHS drive to fail, and half of them were things that were nearly impossible to survive. But this one... This one had tickled Tony’s intuition until he’d passed the word on to Steve. Now, to find out if it had been worth the detour.

The first escape pod was drifting between the _Avenger_ and Hydra’s wreckage. A closer look at it showed that the back had been blown off -- it looked scragged and then some, the metal warped and sagging as if it had been melted. If anything was still alive in there, Tony didn’t want to meet it.

The Captain pushed the little shuttle up to the main navigation and control deck. “See if you can get this thing to talk to the _Avenger_. Passenger lists, crew complement, that kind of thing. While you’re opening the door.” Because Steve never did one thing if he could do a dozen, and he never expected less from any of his crew.

“Sure, no problem,” Tony said. “I’ll just reverse engineer the passcodes and local encryption at the same time as I download their entire operating system into the _Avenger’s_ language pile, no sweat.”

“Great, sounds like a piece of cake,” Steve said, already on to the next task, dividing up search patterns, and teams. Not that there was much to organize. Natasha would do whatever the frell she wanted, Bruce would listen to everything she said, and Tony would try to dodge being followed around.

Tony rolled his eyes and plugged his portable into the shuttle’s docking unit, setting it to communicate with the dead ship’s latch. He ran his hack algorithm -- massive groups like Hydra were always just a little less nimble with their encryption updates; it was a chink in the armor that was easily exploited by a small, quick crew. While that was working, he accessed the public communications interface and found a back door that would let him into the nonclassified databanks. He’d have to be in the ship proper to get into the classified stuff, but the crew and passenger lists should be easy enough to find, along with the quartermaster’s inventory, which-- aha! Tony tagged the infosets and flipped them through to Steve’s portable to parse for useful scavenging data.

His cracking algorithm pinged, and the docklight went green. “And we have a door,” he announced, though it would take another minute or so for the airlocks to sync up. “Remember, boys and girls, play nice and be home by suppertime.”

On the plus side, there weren’t dead bodies to step around -- of course, bodies didn’t decay in space, once the available O2 was gone, but frozen, desiccated corpses were still pretty nasty. (Also brittle. Attempting to recover and inter bodies often led to chunks of people-rubble everywhere. Yuck.)

The usual gravity-went-out-unexpectedly detritus was in the air, papers and plasfilms, cups and clots of old coffee and personal effects and weapons, all floating around the corridors like an asteroid belt of junk.

There was also rather a lot of… dirt? Ash? Thick dust of some sort. Gray and gritty and floating in the rooms like fog.

Where were the bodies? It was possible the dead crew were all on another deck, but the clutter in the docking bay strongly suggested _some_ sort of disturbance here. Tony frowned, pushing aside a small constellation of junk, and his eye caught on a blaster pistol -- or rather, what was left of one. Its backstrap was missing, and what was left of the grip was blackened and cracked.

Oh... Tony looked up, not at his crewmates but at the bulkhead beyond them, searching. Natasha spotted it the same instant he did. “Captain,” she said, and pointed.

Silhouettes against the walls, the scorched ash remains of crew almost instantly incinerated.

_She must have been here,_ Tony thought. And her power was growing. Now it was even more vital for him to get into the ship’s databanks.

“I’m hearing _nervous_ ,” Clint said. Tony knew the suit had intercom, and he knew Clint was paying attention, but being surrounded by the void only knew how many dead bodies -- and knowing that they were probably going to be carrying the cremated remains back with them in the nooks and crannies of their suits -- was just gorram disturbing, and Clint’s voice in his ear made Tony want to jump right out of his skin. “Tell me what’s going on over there. I want to share in the fun.”

“It... looks like the attacker had some kind of high-powered incineration weapon,” Tony said carefully. “No bodies left, just ash. Probably sucked half the air out of the ship all by itself; might explain why some of the decks just crumpled. Get, uh. Get the medical decontam showers ready. I’m not reading anything toxic over here, at least not anymore, but we’re all going to want to clean off after this. A lot.”

“Oh, that’s freaky. What _the frell_?” Clint agreed.

“Stow the chatter, people, let’s get our profit and get out of here. Leave the dead in peace,” Steve snapped out. “Tony, pull up any footage or data that might indicate who did this, and more importantly, why. Not that I necessarily object to a Hydra mass murderer, but if it’s just a random attack, it might be something worth dropping a hint to Galactic Council. Innocent people could be at risk.” Steve waved in the direction of the weapons locker. “Nat, you’re with me. Bruce, stay with Tony.”

Well, that gave him a legitimate excuse to root around in the computers. “Right,” Tony said. “Bruce, you’re with me. Let’s see if we can find a dataport that hasn’t been slagged.”

They left Nat and Steve to their scavenging and made their way toward the bridge, which would have the best computers outside of the engineering decks. The terminals here were more or less intact, thank frell. Tony plugged in at the security officer’s station while Bruce poked through the navigation logs. “Let’s see. If I were a security camera bank, where would I keep my-- aha!” He started downloading the tapes, then went poking through the secure manifests.

The encoding suddenly took a jump in quality, slowing the decoder’s work. “Hey, Cap? I’m reading something here about an asset that comes with care and handling instructions, which suggests to me it’s pretty valuable. If it’s still where they packed it, it’ll be in Cargo Hold C. Passcode is... Oooh, a whole separate encryption key, just for this asset of theirs. Definitely valuable. I’ll send you the passcode as soon as I’ve got it broken.”

“Copy that,” Steve said. “Natasha and I are loading a few grav-pallets they have here. The pallets themselves are practically worth the expense of the trip, so, my compliments to your source.” Somehow, Steve always managed to sound just a little grouchy, even when he wasn’t complaining. The guy was a champion rant-and-raver.

Mission logs, another set of files with a tertiary encryption key, popped up then. There was a red-lettered box flickering. Something about those files had an alert attached. The system churned, attempting to access the ship’s tight-band communications, probably to send a status, or maybe a directed distress call. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to get through; the comm-array was complete slag. That was probably good; the last thing the _Avenger_ ’s crew needed was to have a Hydra rescue team show up while they were pillaging.

Except that the automatics didn’t stop attempting to send the message. Instead, it flickered and shot out a line through the... the docking systems? What the frell was it -- oh, _dren!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary:**
> 
> _BEHS_ (pronounced Bez) - Black hole Event Horizon Stabilizer - one of a few different FTL drives that operate in this AU, this one generates microscopic black holes in front of the ship and uses the gravity wells from the event horizon to fling the ships around the galaxy. Very compact, and can be installed on a ship of nearly any size, unlike most other FTL drives, which require a certain mass to operate. Very fast, but at a higher risk for mid-jump errors, most of which are invariably fatal. Due to the risk factor, BEHS drives are usually found on warships and pirate vessels, never on commercial vessels. Run off palladium cores. Manufactured by Stark Industries
> 
>  _Frell_ \- a portmanteau of fucking hell, can be used for either. Source: _Farscape_
> 
>  _Gorram_ \- bastardization of “goddamn”. Source: _Firefly_


	2. Chapter 2

“Oh, no you don’t!” Tony snapped, slapping at the board. “Clint, shut down comms. Shut them down _now_.” Sneaky Hydra, trying to piggyback on a docked ship’s communication system, infect them with a coded message. Nope, not happening. He dove into the codestack, looking for the hooks, carefully disassembling them one at a time. The message itself, he copied to a hardened datastick. “Bruce, drop whatever you’re doing, get to a command console, and push the all-ahead for me. Hold it down.”

Encryption like this needed two keys to take apart, and while Tony could crack them both in time, he wasn’t sure they actually _had_ much in the way of time, here. Not if the ship was sneaky enough to try to subvert the _Avenger_ ’s systems. “Let’s see what they’ve got to say that can’t go out over broadband SOS channels...”

Bruce followed instructions, but he did it the same way Clint tended to do the dishes: hesitantly, and a little slow. Frustrating.

“Frell!” Clint came on over the line again. “I got outbound closed down, but a partial snaked through. Better grab what you can and haul ass. If there’s anything bigger than a skipper that belongs to them in thirty ells in any direction, they’ll be here soon.”

“Hazmot!” Tony growled. “Cap, Nat, you read that?” His hands flew over the computer’s screens, copying everything he could get his hands on. He could distill and analyze back on the _Avenger_ , assuming they managed to slide out and away from whoever was coming their way.

“Found that asset hold,” Nat told him. “Did you crack that, or are we--”

The sound of Steve’s vibranium shield striking hullplate was like being trapped inside a giant bell. Tony couldn’t even clap his hands over his ears because there was a gorram helmet in his way. Bruce made an angry, snarling growl and when he looked up at Tony, his normally deep brown eyes were shifting into a brilliant, angry green. He bared his teeth at Tony, mere millimeters away from losing control of his transformation, which would be bad. Not even the Hulk could survive without air.

“Or, you know,” Nat said, casually, after the ringing died out, “Our esteemed captain could exhibit exactly zero patience. One of these days, Steve, you’re going to find a situation you can’t punch your way out of.”

“Haven’t found one yet,” Steve said, oddly cheerful. “We’ve acquired a very big box.”

“Well then,” Tony said, “let’s get it off this ship and onto the _Avenger_ with all possible speed.” He spread his hands for Bruce. “Come on, Brucie, we don’t have time for this, you know that. I don’t have enough duct tape on hand to repair your suit if you split the seams.” He glanced at his copy jobs, then looked back at Bruce.

Bruce’s face got lumpy, green as a pickle, and then he gasped for air a few times. “Turn it down,” he told Tony. “My O2. It’ll help. Maybe.” Tony didn’t want to know where the man had gotten such a bastardized version of the Rebirth serum. Didn’t want to know. But sometimes, he really wondered what the frell had been going through someone’s mind that they had actually used it on a real live human test subject. Since joining up with the crew of the _Avenger_ , Tony had only seen Bruce lose control of his inner demons twice, but both times had been horrific. And one time, bystanders had been hurt. It was bad enough that Bruce had lost his grip on something that big and nasty, but hurting people who weren’t even involved? That sort of thing could cost a man his soul.

Tony darted in and turned the valve on Bruce’s oxygen tank, shutting it down to a trickle. “That’s it,” he said, “nice slow breaths.” Tony glanced at the console. Almost... almost... there! He ripped the datastick from the port and stowed it. Back to Bruce, who was bent over, hands braced on the console. “Bruce? You doing okay in there?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, wheezing a little. “I’m okay.” That was a lie, a gorram lie, and probably a statistic, but Tony didn’t have time to argue. Bruce tore himself away from the console (the console did not come out the winner in that engagement, either) and staggered back toward the _Avenger_ , keeping his head down.

The engineer they’d had before Tony had built a containment room to keep Bruce’s alternate persona locked down, a subspace dilation chamber that was all but impermeable. It wasn’t comfortable, but Bruce tended to head for it, whenever he felt his control slipping. There were, Tony had been told, other methods, but they were better employed if the Hulk was going to be deployed as a tactical weapon, dropping him fully enraged into a combat scenario. The haunted look in Bruce’s eyes told Tony that had happened. More than once.

Tony wrapped his arm around Bruce’s shoulders as they ducked into the docking bay and headed for the ship. “Next planet we’re on,” he promised, “I’ll buy a round of drinks.” Where the frell were Steve and Natasha? That box they’d found couldn’t be but so big, or they’d have said someth-- Oh, now he could see them, coming from the opposite side of the bay, the box between them.

“You love me forever,” Natasha told Tony as she got closer. “They have a Stark Industries drive. Same model as ours! I got a whole _case_ of palladium cores.” She tugged on a strap for a box on her shoulder.

“I love you in this life and in the next,” Tony swore. “I’ll tack on the life after that, too, if you pulled a couple of lightwave converters.”

“I’ll take your bunk and call it even?”

Tony’s room, by virtue of also being his workshop, was technically the largest onboard, though Steve’s was a lot more luxurious, with a feather mattress. But what Tony had -- and which Nat coveted gleefully -- was an actual water-based shower, because it was faster than the standard sonic shower for removing caustic materials from skin. Theoretically. He might have abused the privilege a few times. Sonic showers sucked, and they did weird things to Tony’s hair.

“Why First Mate,” Tony gasped, pressing his free hand to his chest, “I didn’t know you wanted to bunk with me!”

Nat made a thumbs up, nearly lost the precious cargo over her shoulder as they moved toward the _Avenger_. “I’m not picky. I’d bed a Denebian Slime Grub at this point for an honest to frell _shower_.”

“And Tony’s only slightly less repulsive,” Clint tacked on. “Come on, hurry up, I got EV signatures all over the place. We’re about to be in the middle of Custer’s last stand, if you don’t hurry the frell up!”

Tony all but pushed Bruce into the shuttle ahead of him, and dropped immediately into the pilot’s seat. Natasha was the better pilot, if they were going to have to dock with the _Avenger_ on the run, but he could at least get them warmed up and ready to go.

The crate that Steve and Natasha had recovered was enormous, bulky and solid. It was some sort of titanium-nickel alloy, valuable without even considering the contents. It also took up most of the cargo space and spilled into the passenger compartment. When Natasha shoved him out of the pilot’s couch, Tony ended up not having anywhere to strap in, which left him clinging to the side of the crate while Natasha executed some ridiculously terrifying flight maneuvers to get them up and away.

A data port was on the outside of the crate. It probably included a manifest and the signature on the encryption lock. Unfamiliar letters dotted the front of the box, red ink that appeared to have been enameled on. At the very end of the script was a five-pointed star in the same vivid red.

“As soon as you’re clear, I’m moving,” Clint told them. “Be ready to cut internal gravity on my mark, and hold on to your butts. Gonna go net-fishing here. We’ve got incoming.”

Tony cursed under his breath -- of all the times not to be able to strap in! -- and tried to wedge himself in where he wouldn’t get banged around too much. He looked at Bruce and got a weary nod and thumbs-up. Steve, as usual, had strapped in perfectly the instant he’d set foot aboard. “We’re go for maneuvers back here,” Tony reported.

Tony glanced at the flight screen; with practice and effort, he could probably pilot as well as Natasha. All piloting was, in essence, was math made practical. He could read the screen with ease, see each and every fluctuation of the drive, the core, gravity from surrounding objects, and translate those into dazzling equations of thrust and vector. He just couldn’t work the controls fast enough. Yet. Natasha did it all like she was sleepwalking or putting on her morning makeup.

Clint scooped them out of space by purposefully almost colliding with them and then punching the BEHS drive, surfing them off into the next chunk of space. On the plus side, Tony didn’t get crushed by the cargo. He did, however, go flying and end up face-first in Bruce’s chest after Bruce snagged him out of mid-air and bear-hugged him. Well, Tony supposed, it was strapped down. Sort of.

“Love you too, big guy,” Tony said, gently disentangling himself. “How much longer before we can properly dock?”

“Gonna release the countermeasures, then jump,” Clint told him. “You can stop your whining then.”

It took both longer than Tony would like, and less time than it probably could have if Clint hadn’t been a top-notch navigator, to get them back underway. “Headed for Asgard,” he told them. “The Odinsons are good for the take we've got, and with adequate repair docks, so Tony can keep us from doing the spaghettification dren when the BEHS goes out on us. Almost a week in FTL, just over two days to the end of first event.”

Two days in transit; that should give Tony plenty of time to go through the data he’d downloaded and find out whether he’d found a clue worth chasing. And maybe even take a nap. ...Maybe. Shouldn’t get too crazy, there.

“All right, good job,” Steve said. “Decon first, just to be safe. Nat, Bruce, get this stuff sorted and stowed. Tony, make sure we’re good and not going to have jump errors before we reach Asgard. Then crack the encryption and unlock this box, okay? I want to make sure it’s worth the fuel to carry the gorram thing. I’m going to have a look at those manifests. I’ll be in my quarters. Tony, call me when we’re ready to open this?”

Steve patted the crate almost like it was a pet, fingers tracing the red star curiously, before stripping out of his EVA and gear with a casual disregard for nudity that probably came from having been a soldier in SHIELD’s ranks before breaking away to become an outlaw. Tony didn’t know much more of the captain’s past, and he didn’t ask too many questions. It was safer for them all not to share too much.

Tony waited until Natasha and Steve were finished before following suit.

It wasn’t that the crew didn’t know about the arc-reactor in his chest; the augmentation, voluntary or otherwise, was what made him part of the crew. Illegal modifications were illegal, no matter how one had ended up with them, and enhanced individuals were property rather than people. Except for Clint, the whole crew was in the same boat, slipping through the shadowy borders of space where the Galactic Council didn’t have as much pull as in the Core, working as a team to survive while avoiding authorities that would arrest them and send them back to their owners.

But the crew didn’t know the palladium core was slowly killing him -- Tony had managed to dodge Bruce’s checkups fairly regularly and hadn’t been hurt badly enough to be unconscious yet. And Tony was still weirded out when people looked at him and his collection of scars. Unlike Tony, the rest of the crew had been deliberately enhanced with, among other things, improved healing. No matter what happened to them, if they weren’t killed outright, they’d survive. Heal. Eventually.

Tony’s enhancements were a side effect of his modification, an unexpected glitch.

Tony dressed as fast as he could after the shower. Decon was uncomfortable, cold, and smelled of medicines and chemicals. Even with the _Avenger’s_ top notch engine and batteries, there was a limit to how warm they could keep the ship’s ambient temperature. Tony was always cold, these days. Being damp from the decon chemicals just made it that much worse.

Bruce and Nat were already sorting the smaller crates when Tony joined them in the cargo hold. Bruce popped the seals on a tiny box, peering inside with interest. “Oh, ho,” he said, snagging something. “Bonus!” He tossed a foil packet at Tony and two to Nat before taking one for himself. “Chocolate!”

“That better not all be eaten by the time I get down there,” Clint whined.

“Gorram straight I’m eating your share!” Tony crowed, winking at Nat. He tucked the packet into his pocket alongside the datasticks. Chocolate was too rare, out here in the black, to dive into at random. He was saving this for a special occasion.

Besides, he had a grav engine and a BEHS drive to oversee, before he could indulge in such luxury.

How far he’d come from the spoiled corporate scion he’d once been.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary:**
> 
> _Gorram_ \- god damn it -- source: _Firefly_
> 
> _Hazmot_ \- son of a bitch / Haz (bitch) -- source: _Farscape_
> 
> _Ells_ \- slang for Light Years (LYS), ended up getting shortened into Ells


	3. Chapter 3

The encryption on the box was intriguing. It had been built in layers, and given the age of some of the algorithms, added to rather than replaced over the years. It took Tony a couple of hours to break through it all. He wished he had access to JARVIS; the analysis would have only taken a matter of minutes. As it was, he had to make do with his portable, FRIDAY. FRIDAY was sweet, but she didn’t have near the processing power JARVIS had.

Still, it was a fun challenge. Whatever kind of weapons Hydra kept in the crate, they must have been restricted to only a very few elite or high-ranked officers. Which only made Tony want to open it more.

The instant the light turned green, Tony thumbed the shipcomm. “Package is ready for delivery, Cap.” He didn’t wait for Steve to show up before he plugged into the manifest, eager to check out the profile.

Except that the top layers weren’t weapons manifests, they were ops reports, the most recent going back a year or so -- an assassination, which wasn’t out of Hydra’s way at all. The next one was an op to stir up political unrest on a Council member’s home planet.

Steve vaulted off the second floor gangplank, landing neatly on his toes. Frelling show-off. “What’ve we got?” He barely glanced at Tony before pushing the lid off the box. It landed on the deck with a metallic clang.

White mist rose out of the crate, like fog, thick and pearlescent in the light, occluding all glimpses into the box. It smelled like ginger and mint.

Slowly, it cleared to reveal a naked man, curled on his side like a comma. He was resting inside a custom liner, made for his body and discouraging much in the way of moving around, like he was just another piece of merchandise.

He was thick with muscle. A fall of dark hair, cut neat just below his chin, kept most of his face in shadow. He had a square jaw and chin, the skin there just dotted with the shadow of a beard.

And he had a metal arm; shining, gleaming. Marked with the same red star that had been on his crate.

“Oh, frelling void,” Tony whispered. “They’ve got an operative on ice?” He flashed his portable screen at Steve, currently frozen on yet another assassination. So far every op had been flawless, not a single glitch. Tony flipped to the next and his knees nearly buckled even before the words fully registered in his brain.

_Howard and Maria Stark_. His parents, who’d been killed in a freak drive failure almost fifteen years ago, leaving Tony and the company both to Obie’s less-than-tender mercies. Only it _hadn’t_ been a freak drive failure, according to this report. Oh, frell, he was staring at his parents’ assassin. And he couldn’t say a word about it without completely blowing his cover.

“Steve,” he started, carefully, “I don’t think we should--”

The man sat up. Opened a pair of ice-gray eyes and scanned the room. For just an instant, his face registered confusion, then all emotion vanished and Tony was staring into the face of a killer. A killer who would murder without reason, without remorse, as empty of feelings as an AIM drone.

The man rolled out of his casing, nakedness obviously bothering him not at all, and took up a defensive position behind his crate.

Tony backed away several quick steps. “Cap!”

Steve was no help at all. He was staring at the Hydra assassin, a baffled scowl on his face. He took a few, hesitant steps toward the man, reaching out a hand. “Bucky?”

Oh, dren, Cap had lost it. Or worse, actually _did_ know the frelling thing. “Cap, no, don’t!” He backed up a little further. If he could get close enough to the ship’s comm, maybe he could call for help before they were all dead.

The assassin blinked, that dead expressionless face breaking again into confusion. “Who the frell is _Bucky_?”

Tony took advantage of Steve and the assassin’s distraction to punch the shipcomm. “Nat, need you in cargo, priority one, or whatever’s more urgent than that.”

“Bucky, hey, come on, it’s okay,” Steve was saying, moving closer. “You know me. It’s Steve. Steve Rogers.”

“ _I don’t know you_!” The assassin picked up the lid of his crate -- one handed -- and threw it at Steve, sending the deadly projectile crashing across the cargo bay. The edge bit into the wall, thrown with such force that the hull integrity warnings started flashing.

“We’re losing pressure, what the frell is going on down there?” Clint’s voice came over the intercom, a brief distraction for everyone.

“The frell is wrong with you?” Tony demanded. “You want to kill us all?!” He scrambled for the emergency patches and began tending to the dented and cracked bulkhead. “Steve, get away from that guy! He’s a killer, you don’t know him! Not now, even if you ever did!”

Steve ignored Tony utterly, staring at the assassin like his long lost boyfriend returned from the dead. “You’ve known me your whole life,” Steve said, still talking to the man like he was some sort of gorram puppy. “Come on, pal. I’m not going to fight you.”

“ _SHUT UP!_ ” The man clenched at his temples for a moment, wobbling on his feet. He shook his head as if to clear it, and then Natasha was there.

She practically climbed the man like a tree, wrapping one of her garrotes around his throat with ease. The man got two metal fingers between the wire and his neck, trying to throw her off. They twisted together, Natasha riding him like a barside mechanical bull, her spine twisting to keep her balance, knee planted between the man’s shoulder blades.

“Nat, no! Don’t hurt him!”

“What about him hurting _me_?” Nat demanded.

Tony fumbled for his stunner, though the void only knew what good it would do; it was calibrated for a standard human, and most enhanciles were immune. “Steve, he’s an _assassin_ ,” Tony tried again. “Look at the list of gorram kills! Look at his specialties listing! They’ve _erased_ him! It’d be a mercy to space the guy!”

The assassin -- it was utterly ridiculous to call a deadly assassin Bucky, what the frell even! -- threw Natasha off and she landed in the middle of some crates with an agonized groan. Tony had never seen that before; Natasha was as deadly as she was beautiful.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve told the man. “You’re with the 107th. Bucky, come on!”

The assassin lifted a weapon in response, and how the frell had the man gotten Natasha’s gorram custom shock baton out of her DNA-coded holster?

Steve wasn’t going to listen to reason, that was clear. Tony grabbed his portable. “FRIDAY, find me a command code!” He scrolled through the data as fast as he could move, until finally a file flashed in red and Tony pulled it out with trembling fingers, skimmed the compliance codes, each locked behind yet more layers of encryption.

“No!” the assassin roared and charged at Tony.

Frelling gorram he was _dead_ \-- A word flashed on the screen. “ _Sputnik!_ ” Tony shouted, holding up his stunner.

The assassin went limp, like a puppet with strings cut, falling to the floor mid stride. The weapon slid across the floor and stopped near Tony’s feet.

Steve was at the man’s side in an instant. “Bucky? Bucky, no, _Bucky_!” and tipped the man’s head back to check for vitals.

“Ow,” Natasha complained. She crawled out from the stack of boxes, blood dripping from her shoulder, down her arm.

Tony picked up the baton and thumbed it up to lethal levels. He kept it trained it on the assassin as he inched closer. “Steve. _Steve_. Stop. He’s out. Command code. What the frell just happened?”

“It’s Bucky,” Steve said, rocking the frelling assassin like he was an injured child. “We grew up together. We trained together. He… I thought he died. Mission, went bad. He fell. I didn’t think it was possible. Bucky, what happened to you?” He brushed hair out of the assassin’s face, staring at him.

Without the killer’s remorseless expression, the man looked young. A shade too delicate to be handsome, he was almost pretty, really. Long eyelashes brushed his cheeks. A sharp nose, good cheekbones, a full, lush mouth. The rest of him was pretty gorram attractive, too, all chiseled muscle and rich, bronze skin. A cluster of scars, old and silver, went around the artificial arm. Huh. Looks like some things, even Rebirth serum couldn’t fix. He couldn’t grow a new limb like a lizard, and the scars were ragged and extensive.

“Well. Whatever happened to him, he wound up in Hydra’s hands as a killer with no memories,” Tony said. A killer who had murdered his parents. Had that been a Hydra order? Tony considered the unconscious man. As good as it would feel to space him before he could wake up, he might be able to give Tony some clues as to who’d hired that job. And Steve was obviously not about to be sensible about this, Tony could tell. It was weird to see the captain so sentimental. “If we’re going to keep him, I suggest getting him into restraints,” Tony said. “Whoever he is now, he doesn’t remember you. And we can’t afford any more damage to the ship like that.” He pointed at the patched-over section of wall.

“Sorry, Tony,” Steve said. He picked the man up in a bridal carry. “He’s my friend.”

There was a long silence as Steve disappeared with the man, carrying him to medical, or maybe the Hulk’s playroom, Tony didn’t know.

The intercom crackled again. “So… uh… I’m late to the show, obviously? What is going on down there? Hello? Hello!”

***

The Asset woke up. One moment he was in black unconsciousness, the next he was aware. He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t take a deeper breath. Didn’t move.

Situational assessment: the Asset was not cold. Alignment indicated he was lying supine on a padded surface, a cloth or blanket spread over him. His head was elevated slightly. There was light in the room, but it was dim. Location: unknown.

Handlers: Absent.

Technicians: Absent.

Mission: No mission priorities set. The Asset was given no mission before cryostasis commenced.

Conclusion: The Asset had been taken prisoner. Expectations: Questioning. Torture. Avenues of escape: unknown.

Personal evaluation: Asset is in prime functioning condition. Pain levels moderate. Will not interfere with function. Priorities: Escape. Water. Weapons. Nutrients.

A flicker of memory, before his capture.

A man with yellow hair, spewing nonsense.

_I don’t know you._

The Asset blinked, then twitched. He’d given himself away to any watchers, indicated his return to awareness. Since it was pointless to continue pretending to sleep, the Asset sat up. The blanket draped over him was simple, white synth-thread. The Asset could fashion a working net, rope, or noose from it, given time.

The Asset had been dressed; a loose-fitting pair of gray trousers and a white, sleeveless shirt. Both made from the same synth-thread. His feet were bare.

Shipboard, then, most likely.

He did a thorough check, but did not discover any pain inducers. His captors did not intend to torture him remotely.

The Asset did not feel relief. The Asset did not feel. The breath he took was just a breath.

Self-assessment complete, he inspected his surroundings. He was on a mattress, which in turn rested on a cold, metal floor. The engine hum vibrated through the surrounding wall, a BEHS drive.

Two surveillance devices, easily spotted. One could be disabled without difficulty, but doing so would give his captors the information that he knew he was being watched. The other was behind a sub-grav field. Harder to disable.

There was grate in the top of the room. It might conceal ventilation devices, for issuing whatever gases were required to obtain compliance. It might also conceal a speaker, for conveying commands and other sounds. Not wide enough to admit the Asset for escape, even if there was a passageway beyond it.

The door was solid, ship’s hull grade metal.

The floor was covered with scrapes and dings.

Probable location: Converted cargo hold. Security level: medium. Accessable from an exterior code panel, located at waist height, more than likely. To the left of the door from the Asset’s side. His artificial hand could detect the passage of current behind the wall. Again, it would tip off his captors to his capabilities.

The ship’s air was oxygen-rich, with the faintest scent of the deodorizer. The Asset let his mouth drop open, the air settling on his tongue. Each planet had terraforming particles that floated in the air. Sometimes, the Asset could detect a planet’s flavor. Nothing, this time, or the air had been canned. Not unusual for shipboard.

The Asset had no further information.

The Asset should wait. Eventually his captors would make themselves known to him.

_You’ve known me your whole life._

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

The Asset shook his head.

The Asset should wait for further information.

The Asset had been closed inside rooms of smaller dimensions. Locked inside cryostasis chambers and transport modules.

The Asset was not afraid. Assets do not feel fear.

The Asset should…

“Hello?”

The Asset did not recognize his own voice. He was not usually required to speak, outside of mission reports. His voice was scratchy from disuse and screaming.

Why had the Asset screamed?

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes._

The Asset didn’t have a name. Didn’t need one. The Asset’s heart rate increased, as if preparing for imminent action. There was nothing to fight here. There was no reason to fear.

“Hey!”

The Asset found himself against the door, artificial arm striking the surface frantically. Not to beat the door down; even his enhanced strength had no chance against hull plating, not before anyone heard him. Knocking. Like he expected someone to _let him out_.

_Let me out._

 


	4. Chapter 4

A man’s voice came over the speaker. “Oh, you’re awake. Have a nice nap?”

Not the blond. That man’s voice was etched in the Asset’s head, unforgettable.

At least for now.

The Asset was breathing harder. There was plenty of air in the room, his captors weren’t trying to suffocate him. Yet. But each pull of air was harder than the last.

The Asset wasn’t afraid. The Asset did not feel fear.

He drew himself up, stood as straight as he could. “Affirmative.” Give no more than necessary.

_Sergeant. 32557038._

His own voice, echoing inside his head. What… the numbers were unimportant. A scrap of a dream.

The Asset didn’t _dream._

“You should know,” the voice said again, “that we’re in possession of your compliance codes. We’d rather not use them. It’s a drennish way to treat a human being. But we will, if we have to. Got that?”

“Asset transfer protocols,” the Asset said, “require a handler of level two or higher. Or possession of compliance codes. Handler designation?”

“Yeah, I’m not--” The speaker cut off with a burst of static, as if someone had turned off the microphone mid-sentence. Or as if the line had been cut. The Asset attempted to calculate the probability of either occurrence, but did not have enough of the variables. Before he could decide, the voice returned. “Call me Tony. If I open the door to bring you something to eat, are you going to attack again?”

Any attempt would be met with compliance commands. The Asset had done more than fallen into enemy hands. He was going to be _subverted_. Protocols in that situation were clear.

The Asset _could not be_ subverted.

Two options: the first, primary. Self-elimination.

A second, older protocol. Give them what they want. Don’t give them an excuse. Bow. Scrape. Obey. Wait for an opportunity and _run_.

The Asset considered the two options. Self-elimination in this cell was nearly impossible. More information was required.

“The Asset will remain compliant,” he told the handler. _Tony_. “No attack initiatives will engage at this time.”

“Yeah, okay.” The speaker cut off again, and only a moment or two later -- the microphone must have been very near the Asset’s makeshift cell -- the broad door swung open to reveal a man of barely middling height, wiry and dressed as a ship’s mechanic might, in loose coveralls. He had elaborately styled facial hair and wary brown eyes.

There was a tray in one hand, filled with food. Enough food to suggest they understood a soldier’s dietary requirements. Of course, if they had his compliance codes, they must have the complete manual. The Asset did not reach for the food. It might be a test.

“We all collected and calm in here?” the man asked. Definitely the same man from the speaker, though his voice had a resonance in person that the speaker had muted.

The question was meaningless, the tone a jumble of suppressed nerves, aggression, pity. Other things the Asset didn’t know how to identify. “Sir, the Asset is--” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He held out his hands, weaponless, knowing it meant nothing. The Asset was well trained for unarmed combat. He put his hands behind his back, standing as close to inspection mode as possible without a uniform.

“Yeah, okay, you’re behaving, I get it,” the man -- Tony -- said. He set the tray on the end of the mattress, watching the Asset carefully the whole time. He retreated to the doorway, and considered the Asset even more. “You must have questions. I can’t tell you everything, but you can ask.”

Permission. To ask questions? The Asset didn’t make _inquiries_. Gather information. The Asset couldn’t help the twitch of his features, his mouth pressed together, jaw tightened. Asking questions was another form of giving information. His captors could learn a great deal by what questions he chose to ask. The Asset didn’t even know how to choose anything. “Intentions?”

_What are you going to do with me?_

“Well, that kinda depends on you, sunshine,” Tony said. “Try to hole the ship again, and I’ll stuff you back in your crate and space it, no matter what Steve says.”

“Structural damage to space going vessel results in collateral damage,” the Asset reported. “Restraint required, to preserve ship, crew, and Asset.” That much, at least, was true for every creature that breathed. Spacing himself would be an effective means of self-elimination. He allowed himself to look at the-- at Tony. “It’s a smart plan. It’s what I’d do.” A prod in the right direction, to keep the Asset out of enemy hands.

“So glad you approve,” Tony said, mouth twisting wryly. “Maybe you can convince Steve. He’s on the other end of the spectrum, where you’re concerned. Probably thinks he can talk you into joining the crew.”

That didn’t make sense. The Asset did not… “The Asset does not…” He stopped again. He did not make choices, he could not be _talked into_ anything. He obeyed orders. That was his purpose. Handlers knew these things. The enemy did not. There was no purpose into putting more of his uses on display. “The Asset strongly advises spacing. Or compliance usage. For the safety of the ship.”

_What the frell? Why did he say_ that?

“I’m sure we’ll take your advice into consideration,” Tony said. “But Steve is not likely to be convinced on either front. He seems to think you know him.”

_Wipe him. Start over._

“The Asset…” Another twitch of his mouth, his fingers tightening into fists. “Who is he?”

_I knew him._

_You’ve known me your whole life._

“Steve? Steve Rogers, ex-SHIELD soldier. Now he’s the captain of our little crew. What do you want to know? I can call him down here for you, if you want to talk to him.”

The Asset shook his head. No.

And then looked up at Tony with trepidation. The Asset did not have wants. The Asset did not tell a handler _no_. The Asset… did not have protocols for this sort of questioning. He was confused. He was exhausted. He was… his stomach snarled. The Asset was hungry. Nutrients, calories, were right there.

It was a test. It had to be.

The Asset returned to the mattress, hands still behind his back. Went to his knees and bowed his head. It was as close to compliance as he could get in this environment. Ready for orders. Ready for punishment. _Ready to comply._

Tony sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got work to do. You have lunch, and if you need anything, just knock again, and someone’ll come see to you, okay? Right.” There was silence for a moment, and then the heavy, almost final sound of the door closing.

The Asset waited. He waited some more, but no new voices came. Nothing changed.

The Asset eyed the food. _Surely_ , it was left here for him.

He waited a little longer, just to be sure. Picked up a slab of protein, fitted between a rough-cut roll of some sort. Took a tentative bite and held it in his mouth. The Asset didn’t detect any poisons or chemical agents. No one ordered him to spit it out.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

Took another bite and let himself actually taste it. Beef, maybe? Synthetic, vat-grown, but still, sweet, almost juicy. Paste. Dairy ( _cheese)_ on top.

The rest of the food disappeared in short order.

***

Tony stared at the ops report, unseeing. He’d read it over and over until he had every word memorized, the position of every letter on the screen. His initial flare of furious passion had subsided, leaving him with a dull ache of loss and injustice.

He couldn’t even be that mad at the assassin -- Barnes, if Steve was right. That flash of abject terror in those icy grey eyes, swallowed by such complete subservience... The guy was dangerous, no question, but he had no more agency than Tony’s stunner. Maybe less; the stunner didn’t work if you didn’t pick it up, but Barnes had been forced to participate in his own subjugation.

He didn’t seem to remember anything beyond the protocols they’d built into him, either, so there would be no help in tracking down the _real_ culprit -- the one who’d set Barnes on Tony’s parents. Well. Tony had done more with less, in the past. He would again, if that’s what it took.

But that kind of drive needed passion. Anger. Tony couldn’t seem to summon more than tired frustration.

Maybe he was just flat tired. It had taken a while to get the palladium core upgraded, and then to install the almost-new lightwave converters. Natasha had finished her shower before he’d been done, in fact. And then he’d watched (not _brooded_ , Clint!) over the security image of the sleeping Barnes for a while. Not very long. Definitely not more than an hour.

And then he’d tried to dig into the data recovered from the Hydra ship -- they still needed to figure out what had destroyed it, and Tony had his own agenda to chase. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Barnes had calmly recommended spacing himself.

Who _did_ that? Like he was some kind of robot with no actual feelings. Except he _did_ have feelings. Tony had seen that flash of fear. Had read volumes into that moment of hesitation before he’d knelt in subservience.

Natasha was apparently having some concern for his nerves. She knocked on the open hatch before sliding into the engineering compartment, hair still wet and clinging to her face. “I was one of twenty-eight girls trained by the Red Room. If I saw any of my sisters, today, I would make my peace with my maker and then see that she met him instead.”

“I get the feeling Steve would just sit there and let this guy kill him,” Tony said. “What the frell did they do to him?”

Natasha made a face and the slightest shrug. And then she pulled out a device that Tony recognized. It was illegal, a comm jammer, white noise generator, and bug detector all in one. Bain Industries had developed some of the tech, and then the governments who liked very much to be able to spy on their citizens had moved as a collective to ban the devices. There was no official logo or telltales on the device. Definitely gray market, if not black.

“Our captain doesn’t altogether trust you,” Natasha told him. “And… this information would not benefit him. I would tell you not to repeat it, but you must be the judge of that. The soldier, who calls himself an Asset. I know him, as well.”

This was some kind of test. Tony was smart enough to know that. Natasha _never_ talked about her past, before she’d joined Steve and Bruce and Clint as fugitives and pirates. He cocked his head. “How?”

“I do… I do not know who he was before he was introduced to the Red Room students. He was a teacher,” she said, simply. “Close combat, stealth, marksmanship.” She licked her lip, then, “Later, we were sent on missions, together. Became close. We were caught. I saw what they did to him, punishment and _recalibration_. He did not know me again, after.” The eerie blankness in her face told him a lot more than he wanted to know about _punishment_.

“He certainly didn’t know you earlier,” Tony agreed. “Do you... think it’s possible he could remember?”

She raised one shoulder and dropped it, a half-shrug. “With time? Perhaps. That they had a procedure in place to suppress his memories and personality suggests, if he had not been too badly damaged from repeated wipes, that he may come back. It was not the usual. Most of those enhanced are volunteers, like our captain, before he found the restrictions too confining. Or indoctrinated from early childhood and trained.” She tapped her fingers to her chest. “He did not volunteer, but he was not raised to it. I don’t imagine they expected he would be a success, but… _Zimovy Soldat_. The Winter Soldier. He is considered the asset. The best of all.”

Tony grimaced. “If they knew he was on that ship and don’t find him, they’ll be looking for him,” he guessed. “We may have brought all Hydra down on us with this.”

“Yes,” Natasha said. “They would never hesitate to kill or capture any of us, but now… they will be _hunting_. This much the captain should know, even if he will not act wisely on this information.”

“Yeah, I’ll pull what I can from the files and-- Do you hear something?” Tony looked around with a frown.

Natasha snatched up her stealther and shut it down. As soon as the bubble of soft muted sounds melted away, the ruckus was a lot more obvious. The whining zat of a stunner, set to full, was unmistakable.

“He’s out,” Natasha said, grimly.

“Gorramit,” Tony cursed, and jumped to his feet, running flat-out toward the source of the sound.

The crew of the _Avenger_ tried not to get into too many physical altercations, usually, but enough found them anyway that Tony had seen Steve in a fight. He hadn’t ever seen Steve matched up against an enhancile of his own strength, though, and it was as breathtaking as it was terrifying.

Steve was fighting purely defensively, pleading with Barnes to recognize him, to stand down. Barnes wasn’t listening at all, pressing his advantage with lethal grace. Steve backed and rolled and dodged, but he already had a swelling cut on his face that suggested that Barnes had caught him with that metal fist.

Despite Tony’s earlier accusation, Steve wasn’t sitting still for Barnes to kill him, but he sure wasn’t fighting back. Tony hesitated only a heartbeat, and then saw Barnes tear a walkway railing off its posts and swing it like a sword.

Steve was going to _die_. Tony put on a burst of speed, skidding across the metal floor, and threw himself between the two soldiers. “Stop, gorramit!” He spun to face Barnes. “ _Stop!_ ”

Tony had less than .3 seconds to realize that blow was going to take his head right off.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The Asset woke when the door to his cell opened again. This time it admitted the blond man. The Asset did a quick sweep; the man wasn’t armed. He wasn’t even wearing protective gear, dressed instead in soft slacks and a white tee that was barely holding any of its shape integrity over a thick, muscular chest.

“Do you know who I am?”

The Asset wet dry lips with his tongue. “Captain Rogers. Tony said.” The Asset wished Tony were present; the man had a mobile, expressive face and he also did not make the Asset’s head feel strange.

“That's right,” Rogers said but he didn't actually look pleased. Like the Asset had given him the right answer for the wrong reason. Another test that the Asset had no way to successfully complete. “So what do I call you?”

“The Asset does not have a designation,” the Asset said.

“What if there was another asset present? Would you have a designation then?” Rogers asked the questions like they tasted bad in his mouth.

The Asset struggled. It had been a while since the Asset worked as part of a team. Sometimes he was assigned a squad as back up or for more cumbersome operations. But they had ranks and names, even if they were disposable. Finally, a tickle of a thought, and the Asset followed it. “The Winter Soldier.”

“And before that? Who were you before that?”

The Asset just stared. There wasn’t anything before that.

“Can we talk? I just want to talk,” Rogers said.

The Asset shrugged. He had no say in whether or not Rogers talked. He wasn’t certain that he was required to _listen_ , but he couldn’t stop Rogers from talking.

So, Rogers talked.

He talked about his friend, Bucky Barnes. Insisted that Bucky and the Asset were one in the same. Talked about Bucky Barnes’ family; mother and sisters. Rogers had been his friend, sickly, poor, and bullied. Barnes had been conscripted into the second Hydra War by SHIELD, the military branch for the Galactic Council, under threat of Hydra. He’d gone off to fight, and Rogers had volunteered for an SSR enhancement program, Rebirth.

Barnes, supposedly, had been captured, held on a prison planet, and Rogers, a successful enhancile, had rescued him.

“You looked up at me and you said, ‘I thought you were smaller,’” Rogers said, a smile touching his face, lighting him up like a spotlight.

And he kept _talking_.

Everything he said was like an icepick in the Asset’s skull, stabbing and brilliant, a flare of agony. Everything was a twist of a knife in the Asset’s chest, until he was bleeding out from a hundred wounds that he couldn’t even see.

“Shut up,” the Asset told him.

Rogers kept talking.

“Shut up. I’m not this friend. I don’t know you.”

“You’re my friend. To the end of the line.”

Something snapped. The Asset was on his feet, yelling. “Shut up, shut up! I don’t know you!”

A twinge of guilt; the Asset had told Tony that he wouldn’t attack, that he would keep the crew and the ship _safe_. Implied that he would keep himself safe. Rogers wasn’t safe. Rogers was a danger to his crew. Rogers was a danger to the Asset.

The Asset was going to kill Rogers.

Even in defense of his life, Rogers insisted on attempting to convince the Asset that he was Barnes. Rogers dodged and ducked, and continued to say infuriating things like “practically brothers” and “end of the line,” which didn’t even make sense.

And then Tony was there, unarmed, directly in the path of the Asset’s improvised weapon.

Stopping the weapon’s momentum should have been impossible.

The Asset felt the servos in the artificial arm give way as he jerked the entire mechanism up, the steel bar crashing into roof girders and tearing through, ripping one finger free from its housing joint, cracking a half dozen plates in his forearm.

Tony stared up at the destruction, following the line from the girders down to the Asset’s arm. He heaved a sigh, then turned to face Rogers. “What the frell just happened?”

Searing agony raced up from the shattered limb. The Asset staggered, synapses firing randomly. He staggered back a step, flesh hand cupping the broken mechanism as if he could hold the pain back. White sizzled across his nerves. He fell, went to his knees.

“Bucky?” Rogers was still insisting.

“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not,” the Asset babbled, rocking himself back and forth, whimpering with every movement.

“Steve, c’mon, he’s messed up in the head. You have to let him heal first. Pushing at him is just going to make it worse, like that time you tried to keep walking on a broken leg.” Tony was next to him then, crouched by the Asset. “Hey, come on, let’s go take a look at your arm, see if I can fix you up, huh?”

“You could _both_ have been killed,” the red-haired woman said. “I am Russian. I should be neither surprised nor dismayed. And yet, I find myself both. Idiots.” She glanced between the Asset and Tony. “Tell him I’m going to help you.”

Tony blinked at her. “Why do I have to--” He broke off at the look she gave him. “Fine. Okay, this is Natasha, and she’s going to help me. Try not to hurt her. Again.”

The Asset managed a nod. “Sir… yes.” The woman got under his uninjured side, helped Tony to lift the Asset for repair. The Asset couldn’t help but tremble. Tony was angry. The Asset had failed the test.

He looked back. Rogers didn’t seem irreparably harmed. Bruised, some bleeding. He was functional. Maybe recalibration wouldn’t be so bad. He didn’t apologize. Failure would never be excused by something so worthless as an apology.

Tony and the woman half-carried the Asset into the engine room, setting him in a normal-looking chair. “Okay.” Tony ran a hand through his hair as he examined the Asset’s arm. The gesture made his hair stand on end. “Do you know if this thing has an off switch? Can we make it stop hurting you while I look at it?”

The Asset tipped his head to one side. There was, but--

“I cannot move it for diagnostics if pain receptors are disengaged,” the Asset told him. “Impairment is equal to forty-six point three percent. Involuntary reactions will not engage. There is no danger to the crew. Repair may proceed.”

“Yeah, no. You’re in so much pain you’re pale and shaking,” Tony said. “We’ll turn it off, get it repaired, and then turn it back on. Tell me how to disengage the pain receptors.”

“ _Why?_ ” The Asset asked before he could even stop himself. He didn’t understand this, didn’t understand any of it. Pain was a tool, to enforce obedience, to remind the Asset not to damage the arm, so much more valuable than he was. It was not ever a matter of concern for anyone who was not the Asset.

Tony closed his eyes for a moment. “Because it’s not _necessary_ ,” he said. “If there’s no way to turn it off, that’s one thing. If the pain is telling you something useful, that’s another thing. But I can see where it’s broken, I don’t need that information to fix it. So if we _can_ turn it off, then why wouldn’t we?”

The Asset merely nodded. He didn’t understand, but his understanding wasn’t required. “Second panel along the scapula, reach under. The battery core is there and can be disengaged. All integral movement will be disabled.”

“Got it.” Tony’s hand dragged slowly along the Asset’s shoulder, feeling for the panel’s movement. The pain spiked for an instant, and then was-- gone. The arm hung limp and dead and broken from his body. “There. How’s that feeling?”

“There is no feeling,” the Asset reported. No feeling in the arm, at least. The musculature that connected his back and the remains of his natural shoulder ached. His head hurt where Rogers had stunned him. His stomach felt strange, queasy, as if he was going to regurgitate his meal. He should not do that, should not waste the calories.

And his chest.

_Ached_. Somehow. Stretched and expanded, like he was holding his breath, except he wasn’t. The feeling intensified with each bit of concern that Tony showed for the Asset, the gentle way he touched the mechanical arm, even though the Asset could no longer feel that limb at all. The way he almost wished he could. Pain or no pain, those soft, delicate and deft touches were so… strange.

He didn’t know how to report any of that.

He wasn’t strapped down, wasn’t being pushed over backward for maintenance. He… didn’t understand any of this. But understanding wasn’t required. Something tickled at the back of his mind, a concept he’d not needed in quite a while, but it teased at the back of his mouth until he tipped his head to observe Tony, and said, “Thank you.”

Tony smiled a little, even as he lifted the useless arm onto a table. “Welcome.” He opened a drawer and took out tools, too fine for engine work, and began to examine the cracked plates, shifting them minutely with a pair of thin-nosed pliers.

The woman put a hand on Tony’s shoulder, light. “I’ll go see if I can’t explain some things to the captain, keep him from interfering. Word to the wise; he’s going to dump this on you, and expect results. I’ll try to check his expectations, but…” She made an exaggerated shrugging gesture.  

“I’ve been living up to Captain Perfect’s ridiculous expectations for months, now,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. “One more on the pile won’t hurt.” He pulled aside the plate entirely and shone a small penlight into the inner workings. “Huh. This isn’t half bad.”

The Asset relaxed into the chair as best he could. Might as well take advantage of the rest, as long as nothing hurt. Let his eyes drift half-closed, watching Tony’s hands work in the mechanism from under his lashes. Breathed. Felt that funny, stretching thing in his chest. Drowsed.

***

Barnes’ arm was a fascinating puzzle of old and new tech, like it had been patched and upgraded but never fully replaced. Some of the parts were easily thirty years old, which meant either a previous technician had only had access to salvage, or Barnes -- and hence Steve, if Steve was right about Barnes being his old friend -- were much older than Tony had guessed.

Another benefit of the serum.

At least they _got_ benefits; the arc reactor in Tony’s chest gave him a mild stamina boost and could be used to power weapons, in a pinch, but mostly it just kept him from dying. Well, kept him from dying _faster_. And yet, it meant he was still no longer legally a person.

At any rate, the damage that had been done to Barnes’ arm was simple enough to fix once Barnes was no longer shaking in pain. A little welding, a new servo in the thumb, some hydraulics work. It took a couple of hours to get it all to where he was satisfied, by which time Barnes was dozing. Since he seemed comfortable, Tony went ahead and checked out the rest of the arm as well, tightening some electrical connections and making sure the moving parts were well-lubricated. It was a little miraculous that the thing worked, given how piecemeal its innards were. Building a new arm from scratch might be an interesting challenge...

No. Barnes was likely to jump ship while they were on Asgard, to get as far as possible from Steve’s impossible hopes and memories.

By the time he finished, Tony was ready to doze off, himself. He nudged Barnes awake -- the soldier snapped to alertness immediately, eyes darting in momentary terror before landing on Tony. “Naptime,” Tony said. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”

Barnes nodded, fell into step behind Tony, a little to one side, like bodyguarding was a skill he also had. Tony had enough of those over the years that it wasn’t particularly unsettling. For a long moment, he missed Happy’s reassuring presence at his shoulder. Behind him, Barnes was running through some sort of calibration exercise, the arm’s plates clicking cheerfully and the servos whining as he shifted, moved, tested.

When they arrived at the cargo pod, Tony had a moment to reflect that they really hadn’t done very well by the man. Even as a prisoner, the room was sparse -- honestly, they’d only just hauled out some of the cargo and shoved it tighter in another pod, and thrown in a mattress and blanket. The ambient temperature was good for storage of goods that weren’t immediately perishable, but it was chilly. Metal walls, no portholes. No screens.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?” Tony turned from his contemplation of the cell to find Barnes watching him.

Barnes shifted, just enough for Tony to see the underlying uncertainty. “Unfamiliar with ship’s protocol. Schedule? Orders? Mission?” His eyes flicked up as if to read Tony’s expression and then back down to the floor. The fingers on his metal arm squeezed, activating servos before he forced himself to unclench his fist.

They hadn’t given him much in the way of comfort at all, had they? “I don’t really follow a schedule,” Tony admitted. “I work when things need to be fixed, and sleep when I fall over. We don’t really have orders for you, aside from to stop trying to kill the crew. Speaking of falling over, I’m about ready to. You hungry? Need to eat before I go hit my bunk?”

“No sir,” Barnes told him. “Functional needs are met.” He hesitated for a long moment, eyes going from Tony’s toes to his chin, up to meet Tony’s gaze again. “Sleep well.” He said that in a breathless whisper, as if it was greatly daring, even beyond the pale. The set of his shoulders reminded Tony of the way he’d felt, sometimes, standing in front of his father, awaiting judgement of one flavor or another.

“Thanks,” Tony said, because keeping it casual seemed to be the right choice. “You too. You get hungry later, the mess is up the stairs and the second hatch on the left. Help yourself to anything that doesn’t have someone’s name on it. Okay?”

Barnes went into the room and turned, standing just inside the hatch, hands at the small of his back. Waiting for Tony to shut the door and lock him in.

It was hard to close that windowless door when Barnes was standing there, watching from under his eyelashes. “See you in the morning,” Tony said lamely, and made himself shut the door. The lock stayed off -- as long as Steve didn’t start pushing him again, Tony didn’t think Barnes would get violent, and Tony had promised Barnes he could visit the mess at need.

It seemed like he should say something else, but he didn’t know what. After a moment, he turned on his heel and headed for his bunk.

 


	6. Chapter 6

A persistent buzzing sound dragged Tony from his sleep, muzzy-headed and still tired. “Nnngh,” he complained. The buzzing did not stop. Tony reached out and slapped at the comm unit making the noise. “What.”

“That hull breach is buckling again,” Clint reported cheerfully. “The deflectors are scrubbed, too. We hit some weather in that last jump. Need you to patch it up, or we’re all gonna get a lot thinner.” Weather, for Clint, meant the dust storms and ion clouds that were sometimes encountered in the brief periods between FTL jumps while the drive recharged. Not too bad, a little at a time, but when they were already fighting old material and a hull breach, it was just as bad as hitting a gorram tornado while in atmo.

“Ugh,” Tony groaned. “Yeah, okay. Give me ten or so to get coffee and I’m on my way.”

“Roger that!” Clint said, and signed off.

Tony sighed and sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair. “Gorram weather,” he grumbled, “messing up my sloppy, spur-of-the-moment patch jobs from crazy hazmots trying to kill all of us.” He stretched and yawned, and-- “Oh frelling _void_!”

Tony caught a glimpse of reflected light from the arc-reactor, like animal eyes in the near darkness. Barnes was sitting on the floor just inside the hatch, watching attentively.

“What the frell?!”

“Sir,” Barnes said. He didn’t so much climb to his feet as spring there, alert and oriented and upright and looking decidedly too much _awake_ for so early in the shift. Tony loathed morning people. Although in Barnes’ case, Tony wasn’t certain if the man was a morning person so much as an alert-at-all-times automaton. “Shift passed quietly. Nutritional needs met. Adequate rest. Ready for orders.”  

“How long have you been there?” Tony wondered aloud. He slid off his bunk and reached for his coveralls.

“Three hours, seventeen minutes,” Barnes reported.  

Well, that wasn’t creepy at all. Tony couldn’t bring himself to yell about it, though. Maybe when Barnes was a little less of a robot, he could explain that it really wasn’t done to just sit and watch someone sleeping.

“Okay, well, you cut my work out for me today,” Tony said, waving the bunk lights up. “so I need to get coffee and go do my frelling job. You can tag along if you want, but don’t get in the way, got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Barnes said. He fell in behind Tony on the way to the mess.

While “mess” was usually a good word for the cabinets and drawers full of food and duriplas utensils, someone had been in there recently. Natasha, from time to time, threw a complete fit about being expected to “pick up after you boys” but when she did, Tony usually went in to find that all his favorite foods had been thrown out and dirty dishes shoved into his personal drawer.

This time, it was like the cleaning fairies had come to visit. Food containers had been reordered in a pattern that took Tony a moment to place, and then he had it: someone had load balanced the food for less shifting in FTL, and from there, the foods were broken down into high calorie, nutrient rich, all the way down to junk food like crisps and the few packets of FlavSeal. Labeled items were tucked neatly in their appropriate drawers, all the dishes had been washed and stowed, and even the countertop, heater, and sonic sink had been scrubbed until they cried for mercy.

“What the...” Tony spun to look at his shadow. “Was this you?”

Barnes’ emotional range had thus far been limited to confusion, anger, and fear. He added something new there, but Tony didn’t quite know how to define it. His cheeks darkened and he stared at the floor. “Sir, the organization of nutritional supplements was suboptimal.”

“...Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Tony said. “You... don’t have to do that kind of thing, you know that, right? It’s nice, but it’s not your job.” He found a coffeepak and threw it into the machine.

Yes, sir,” Barnes said, then… puzzled. “No, sir?”

Tony looked longingly at the still-processing coffee, then turned back to Barnes. “What’s the sticking point?”

“Operating parameters unclear,” Barnes said. “If the Asset is not a prisoner, then protocols of a prisoner do not apply. The Asset is outside of context.” That blush deepened, spread until his neck was as red as a brick and looking invitingly warm to touch.

“Aw, frell,” Tony sighed. He scooped up his coffee as soon as it had finished and gulped down several scalding mouthfuls. “You’re _not_ a prisoner. We had you locked in at first because we didn’t know if you were a danger to us. But no, you’re not a prisoner. Or an _asset_. No one here owns anyone else. You’re a person.”

Tony might as well have told him that it was going to rain caramel-coated popcorn for all the comprehension on those steel grey eyes. Eventually, Barnes nodded. He didn’t really look like he understood, but at least he didn’t have any more uncomfortable questions. When Tony finished his coffee and poured another one, Clint was already squawking about a lack of Tony-shaped usefulness in the cargo bay.

This was followed rapidly by Clint saying, “Have you seen my Fruity Oaty Bars? Couldn’t find any this morning.”

“ _Sub-optimal_ ,” Barnes muttered.

***

He wasn’t a prisoner, so escape and resistance were out of the question. He wasn’t an asset. He wasn’t _anything_ really. Without any clear direction, the Asset followed the most understandable parts of Tony’s direction. He could “stay if he wanted, just don’t get in the way,” though that was a little more difficult to accomplish than he’d originally thought.

Tony was a whirlwind of frenetic motion once down in the engine room.

Engine room. The Asset scoffed. Held together by spit, prayers, and twine, he observed.

Tony’s movements seemed, at first, almost utterly random. The Asset finally found a stool in the back corner that seemed mostly out of the way, yet afforded him a good view of the inner workings of the ship (and Tony, except when Tony flattened himself on the floor and slid under the larger engine coils). The longer the Asset watched, the more a sort of madness-inducing pattern began to emerge.

“No, Clint,” Tony said, directing his commentary toward the comm-system. “I am not going to put a patch on top of a patch. The whole structural integrity decreases with each seam. What I am going to do is upgrade these frelling deflectors so that the dust outside stops poking holes in my patch. Then I’ll seal off cargo and do some EVA. Exterior patching is always better. So, plan to be in normal space for at least three hours before the next jump. And if you can, talk our beloved captain into a space-dock. Always easier to do repairs of this magnitude when I’m not fighting gravity, and I might add, if he balks about it, remind him that it was his gorram friend who put a frelling hole in the hull to start with.”

Tony knew exactly what he was doing, and while his flailing, commentary, and gestures might have seemed excessive, he was dancing, practically, among parts that were older than the Asset, at least, coaxing optimal efficiency out of them with every step and sway.

It was… poetic.

Rogers stuck his head in briefly, his eyes snagging on the Asset’s still form in the corner, and scowled. “I see you’ve found Bucky,” he told Tony, voice curt with annoyance.

The Asset all but groaned aloud, bracing himself for another tirade about _brothers_ and _ends of lines_ and _army_ and _rescued_ , and space him to frell and back if Rogers insisted on describing a mag-train accident again. That part really made the Asset uncomfortable.

But he’d told Tony he wouldn’t hurt Rogers.

The Asset wondered if shoving something in the man’s mouth counted as _harm_.

“Didn’t know he was lost,” Tony said shortly. “Pitch in or get out, Cap; I’m holding her together, but I’m too busy to make small talk right now.” He stuck a screwdriver between his teeth and crawled behind the smaller engine coil to tighten something that the Asset couldn’t quite see.

“Bucky?” Rogers asked, turning his attention to the Asset. “You don’t have to stay down here, if you don’t want to.”

The Asset clenched the metal hand down on the stool’s seat. Conflicting orders, and by rank, captain held sway over a mere engineer. “Not in the way,” the Asset put out. “Tony said.”

Rogers looked as if he had a lot to say about that, but forcibly shut his mouth on it. “Okay, pal. Whatever you want. I’ve put a wave out to Odinson, let them know we’re going to be late. Clint said you needed some dock time or we’re likely to come apart in the black.” Rogers didn’t quite look like he believed that.

Tony grunted. “Not likely. _Will_. Might be next week, might be next month, but if I can’t get out there to replace those damaged panels, then they _will_ disintegrate. My money’s on sooner rather than later.” Tony sat up enough to look at Rogers directly. “I need at least a week in dock. Three days for the panel repair, and four days to go over the rest of the exterior with a fine-toothed comb because you’re a tightwad who doesn’t let us dock even half as often as proper maintenance requires, and I can’t exactly do an EVA when we’re in FTL.”

Rogers grumbled, but ultimately assented.

The Asset waited until Roger’s footfalls went soft and faded into the background before he let out the breath he was holding. A reprieve, no matter how brief, from the confusion and pain Rogers’ words set to spinning inside him. “Tony?”

“Yeah?” Tony was still working behind the engine coil, swapping between the screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

The Asset swallowed, hard, trying to breathe around a sudden attack of nerves. “Pitch in, or _get out?_ I… can pitch in?”

“Sure,” Tony said. “How much do you know about deflector arrays? Like, can I tell you to stabilize the force-beam generator, or am I just asking you to pass me tools?”

The Asset glanced at the grav unit. “Bain Industrial Navigational Deflector, version eighteen-oh-one, which is the version seventeen turned on its ass and hoped nobody noticed. Backward compatible with parts until the model twelve. The generator needs to be aligned by hand and tested against the ship’s central core for adequate shielding of the hull.” He paused. “We’re hooking up to a space dock?”

“Yep,” Tony said. He glanced up at the status screen. “Probably Mithra; they’re an ice-depot in this sector, and while they won’t provide safe harbor for enhanciles, they don’t actively go out of their way to arrest them -- us -- either.” He pointed. “Go align those generator manifolds for me, please, so I can make sure this housing doesn’t vibrate apart. There’s a thing I should requisition, not that Steve will ever pay out for the new one we need.”

“Yes, si-- Yes, Tony.” The Asset didn’t know how he knew about engines, but touching the compartment, he couldn’t help but let his fingers linger on the casing. _I gotcha, sweetheart_. The Asset’s voice, but nothing he could ever remember saying before. Had he been like Tony, before? In some nebulous _before_ , when he had learned things, not for missions, but the sheer joy of knowing them? His hands were on the manifold, feeling the deep rhythm of the ship in his joints, and moving with the roll of the ship.

Lost himself in the work, good and honest, ignoring the faint itch between his shoulder blades as the other crew came and went. The doctor came in to press food on them. The red-haired woman came in to double-check on Tony’s estimates. Rogers came to just watch, until Tony shooed him away, muttering, “Go do captain-y things.”

Eventually, the pilot -- Clint -- came to report that the _Avenger_ was in a holding orbit around Mithra Station, awaiting a clean deck.

“Got yourself a murder duckling, hey, grease monkey?” Clint said to Tony, bringing them both more coffee and a small stack of sandwiches. “We’ll be floating here a while, thought I’d make sure you didn’t faint inside the cooling unit.”

Tony took the coffee first and nearly inhaled it. “Marry me,” he said, making grabby hands for a sandwich.

“Yeah, I’ll get back to you on that. Rather hook up with something taller and a little cleaner than you are, but you’re my backup,” Clint said, clapping Tony on the back. He skirted around the Asset with a cheerful, but cautious, “Keep up the good works, ship’s purrin’ like a kitten. A big, fat, ungainly ninety-year-old kitten, but purrin’ and that’s the important part.”

Docking, finally, was smooth and easy, settling the Avenger up against one of the dry-docks and then the manuals disengaged and the Tower AI slid them home.

***

The Asset was not a prisoner.

So he kept being told, but he was not certain he believed it.

If he was not a prisoner, the Asset’s duty was clear. He was required to notify Hydra -- his handler and his owners -- where he was, that they might come and return him to his proper place. He was an enhancile. It was his duty to stay with the company, government, or service branch that owned him.

Hydra had enforced those rules -- that ownership -- through pain.

But the other members of the Avengers were also enhanciles, and they answered to no masters except those of their choosing. Even Tony, who ranked lower than the Captain on a ship’s government, did exactly as he pleased, within the scope of his rank. He argued with the Captain and was not harmed for that disagreement.

The Asset wasn’t sure what to do.

He dressed in the clothing that the _Avenger_ had provided for him: loose ship-clothing, pale colors and worn materials. They were not armor, nor specialty clothing, just warm and practical. The Asset had not been provided weapons.

He did not ask Rogers if he could go ashore.

He did not ask because he did not know what he would do if the answer was no.

He did not ask because he did not know what he would do if the answer was yes.

The Asset went ashore and no one stopped him.

_You’re not a prisoner. No one here owns anyone else. You’re a person._

The Asset found a banking terminal and used the second finger on his right hand to access discretionary funds. He used the splicing line stored in the thumb of his artificial hand to scramble the access once funds were withdrawn and placed on his personal chit.

The Asset had enough funds to hire a ship to return him to Hydra space. The Asset should return to his masters.

_No one here owns anyone else._

The Asset knew what to do.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mithra is a call-back to the movie Ice-Pirates, from the mid-80's staring Robert Urich and Ron Perlman... so, you know, that's cool. In the movie, the Templars of Mithra destroyed water planets in the universe and charged a fortune for water and ice. Many people in our age bracket discovered their sexual awakening with the rainstorm sex scene. (might have a little something to do with Tisfan's love of shower sex scenes)
> 
> Put in at the request of Politzania.


	7. Chapter 7

Mithra Station was in the midst of a celebration of some sort; as soon as they left the docking port and entered the main concourse, there was no escaping it. The main halls had a carnival air, filled with music and excited chatter and the mingled smells of a hundred different foods, mostly fried. Colorful confetti dotted the floor, and Tony wondered where it had come from until a small gaggle of children ran by, occasionally firing miniature cannons that spat the stuff out in great clouds.

Vendors hawked their wares and haggled with customers. A shop that sold handmade woven bracelets was next to one that sold gold-and-plat jewelry that wouldn’t have been out of place on Tony’s mother’s throat. One booth promised soothing and cleansing oils; another, swarmed with more children, sold toys. A woman sat behind one counter, apparently oblivious to the people around her as she deftly wove frayed ropes into fanciful animals. Another vendor of indeterminate gender called out cheerfully to every passerby, inviting them in to feel the softness of their silken scarves.

At the center of the station, where the six primary concourses all joined together, there was a giant pole streaming with ribbons, and people were doing some kind of dance around it that braided the ribbons together. Tony paused to watch that, captivated by the intricate design of the braiding. The dancers laughed and twirled and winked at each other as if they were flirting, all of them with each other. The music changed, and the single large braid split into fourths, smaller groups weaving in and out as the lengths of ribbon grew shorter and shorter. And then it split again, and finally the dancers were all simply twisting their ribbons in pairs. When the music stopped and the ribbons were entirely wrapped together, the couples holding each pair of ribbons kissed -- some with a decorous peck, and others with a great deal more enthusiasm.

Tony wondered if they’d stumbled into a fertility festival.

The rest of the crew had continued on without him, though Tony could just see Clint standing at a vendor’s booth, haggling over the cost of something -- probably food.

Carnival food sounded pretty good to Tony, for that matter; shipboard food packed a lot of nutrients into relatively small packages, but the end result tended to be somewhat lacking in flavor.

They had some time -- Tony had placed an order for the replacement hullplate that he needed, and had been told that it would take a few days to obtain. He’d been confused about that -- hullplate only came in a few base types, and at a dockyard was easy enough to cut to spec -- but now, watching the throngs of people enjoying themselves, it made sense. All the shipyards were probably down to skeleton crews. And at that, they’d be skeleton crews who were surly for having to work when their comrades were celebrating.

The music started up again, and Tony turned to look: they’d unwoven the pole’s ribbons and started again, with all new dancers. Tony watched for a little longer, until he thought he understood how the pattern worked, and then went in search of entertainment. He had a credstick in his pocket, and time to kill.

Tony was just walking by a juggler who had gathered a crowd and was spinning a number of glittery batons in the air, when he heard a familiar voice.

“ _Amatuer_ ,” Barnes said. No wonder Tony hadn’t recognized him; he was in all new clothes -- frell only knew where he’d gotten them from -- that kept most of him hidden. A rich, wool-lined hooded jacket of a dusty olive shade was pulled up, framing his face. Under it, he was dressed in layers, a thick dirt-colored sweater and under that, a white shirt. He had acquired a pair of denims from somewhere, and a single black glove, a little snug over the artificial hand. If it hadn’t been for that chin and those piercing eyes, Tony might have walked right by him without noticing him at all. The outfit hid everything about him, and he blended in with the crowd like he’d been born on the station.

“Who’s an amateur?” Tony asked. “The juggler? I mean, he’s not going to be playing the Golden Palace anytime soon, but he’s okay.”

Barnes shrugged. “He’s cheating. That third baton is never leaving his hand. It’s just dazzle.” He sounded oddly offended, and the toe of his boot darted out to nudge the cap that the man had set out to collect coins.

“Leave it alone,” Tony chided. “If people are enjoying it, what difference does it make?” He sniffed at the air. “Come on, let’s go get a snack.”

Huffing disdainfully, Barnes turned to fall in formation, just behind and to Tony’s left. “I juggle better,” he declared. “It’s… _substandard_.”

“So don’t drop any credits in his hat,” Tony said, already distracted by the array of food options. His stomach grumbled. “What do you think?” he asked. “Funnel cake, or ice planets?”

Barnes took his time, looking over the holo-displays and advertisements for various foods and shops and sweets. His scowl got darker with each passing treat display. “ _Sub-optimal_ ,” he snarled. “An abundance of calories with minimal nutrients.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Tony said. “It’s _fair food_. It’s _supposed_ to be sub-optimal. That’s the _point_. It’s for fun, not nutrition. Come on, I’m buying you a funnel cake. Be glad I’m not starting you off with fried dreamies.”

“Frying is a _pointless_ method of cookery. It destroys nutrients,” Barnes muttered. “Wasteful. Steaming food packets or reconstituting preserves valuable vitamins and minerals. Empty calories will keep an Asset functional for minimum mission time, if provided with a vitamin supplement.”

“Oh, gorram it,” Tony groaned. “You eat almost as much as Steve does; you can afford a few empty calories.” He bought a plate of fried dough and sugar from the vendor and tore off a chunk. “Here. Stop complaining and eat this.”

Tony might as well have handed Barnes a live worm and told him it was food -- point of fact, Barnes might have approached still-living invertebrates with slightly more enthusiasm, honestly. He sniffed at the dough, dubious, powdered sugar snowing lightly off one end and dusting Barnes’ fingers. He made a sound, like he was considering complaining again, and then took a tentative bite.

Barnes froze, then chewed a few times. One eye squinched all the way shut as he pondered the piece of cake in his mouth. It took him a few more chews before he swallowed. It took him so long to consider the bite, Tony was beginning to worry that Hydra had damaged him, somehow. Removed his tastebuds.

He took another bite, and then another, until the small piece Tony had given him was gone, chewing somewhat faster. When he was finished, he pondered his sugar-coated fingers with puzzlement, as if he wasn’t quite sure where the funnel cake had disappeared to, and what, exactly, he was supposed to do now. He had a smudge of sugar on the side of one cheek, and a dusting of it along his bottom lip.

“See? Pretty good, huh?” Tony tore off his own piece, then held up the plate. “Want more?”

“It is a food substance,” Barnes said, slowly, like he was picking his way through a minefield where one wrong thought would explode in his face. “That has more calories than needful. It is sweet, abundantly so. But it has no substance.” His whole face runkled in consternation. “It is _worthless_. And yet, _satisfying_. I do not understand.” Not understanding didn’t seem to prevent him from absent-mindedly tearing off another chunk.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Tony promised. “It’s a treat. A few empty calories aren’t going to hurt anyone, once in a while. Ooh, look, that place has popcorn in ridiculous flavors!”

Barnes followed Tony’s pointing finger with his gaze and his mouth twitched. He brushed his sugar covered fingers off across his jacket, leaving a sweet smear. “What. _Treats_. Treats are not for Assets.”

“Not an asset,” Tony reminded him. “Person. People get treats, sometimes. Like delicious food with no nutritional value. Or presents.”

Barnes appeared to consider that for a while, then he smiled. It was a strange thing, Barnes’ smile. The way it brightened his whole face, made his eyes crinkle at the sides, and showed off a mouthful of pearly, perfect teeth. “Okay,” he said. He gazed around the food plaza again, this time eagerly examining each sign, then-- a flicker of something crossed his face. Recognition, maybe? “Fried cheese?” He said that almost wistfully.

“Yeah? Let’s do it,” Tony said. “Maybe you’ll learn how to have fun, after all.”

Barnes studied the sign for another moment, then picked the direction. When Tony got too far behind -- he wasn’t, after all, practiced in shadowing anybody -- Barnes reached back and grabbed Tony’s hand, hauling him along like a parent with a stubborn toddler. “Stay close,” he told Tony. They turned a corner, drawn by the scent a wide variety of fried, melted, or block-cut cheese and an assortment of dips.

Tony considered protesting -- he was a perfectly functional adult, after all -- but watching Barnes be hypnotized by the different foods on offer was almost as much fun as the rest of the carnival anyway, and Barnes’ hand was warm and comfortable in his.

Once he’d glommed onto the idea, Barnes appeared determined to sample as many different sorts of junk food as possible. He was amenable to trying everything from salted nuts to candied apples to ice cream and spun sugar floss. He did, at one point, insist on a vat-fried poultry leg of some sort, along with a side plate of buttered vegetables, and he watched Tony closely to make certain he ate at least one bite of everything vaguely healthy, before throwing himself back into the melee and emerging triumphant with a cone full of pavlova and a dish of berry compote to dip it in.

Tony begged off more food; he felt like he’d eaten enough for a planetary month. “You have to have eaten everything by now,” he said. “Let’s go look at the vendors. Or watch the dancing.”

Barnes latched onto the latter suggestion with enthusiasm and made for the center of the station, still holding onto Tony’s hand. Tony wondered if he’d forgotten that he was holding Tony’s hand, or if he was honestly worried about getting separated in the crowd. As evening drew near and the station dimmed the ambient lighting, the crowds were thicker. Wine vendors of every sort dotted the streets with offerings of distilled grape, wheat, or potato. There were even a few grubbier sorts whose offerings were strongly fermented varieties of bathroom gin.

Barnes ended up pulling them up along the edge of the crowd around the ribbon pole. Dancers still lined the circle, braiding their ribbons together and claiming their kisses. Other groups danced alongside, traditional country dances and line dances of every sort imaginable.

Barnes had been almost driven, trying all the food, but he was utterly rapt, watching the dancers. “You like dancing?” Tony asked. “Want to give it a go?”

“I… don’t know,” Barnes answered, still watching the patterns of dancers, the swirl of colors, the braiding of the ribbons, then, more decisively. “Yes. Yes, I want to _give it a go_.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “Next round, we’ll jump in.” He watched for the rest of the dance, concentrating on the steps. He expected the crowd would be forgiving of one or two missteps from an outsider, but he didn’t want to dren up the pattern.

Finally, the music stopped and the ribbons were unwound, and calls made for fresh dancers. Tony stepped forward, pulling Barnes with him. “We’ll dance,” he said.

Each dancer selected a tag from the caller’s basket, and that had a gold-leaf number etched on the tag; the tags matched a ribbon, and a place on the floor. Barnes took his number, stared at it as if he was memorizing a tactical map, and then took his place, putting his token in the discards. His ribbon, when he plucked it from the pole, was the same dark red as the star on his arm that lay hidden beneath layers of shirt and sweater.

Tony’s ribbon was sky blue, nearly on the opposite side of the pole from Barnes’. When the music started, it took him a moment to remember how the steps had looked and translate that into his own feet. He was pretty sure he was flubbing some of the subtler movements, but at least he kept the braid neat.

On the other side of the pole, Barnes displayed unexpected talent. He was naturally graceful, with an innate sense of timing. His moves might have been slightly more martial than those dancers around him, but once Tony caught a glimpse of him, it was hard to stop watching. He was utterly unselfconscious, nimble-footed, and elegant. They passed each other a few times in the steps, circling in and out to weave the ribbons into a colorful mat over themselves, and then unwind again.

A woman, her pink-cheeked face brilliant with the exercise, breathlessly flirted with Tony each time they made the circle, eyes inviting. They spun again through the patterns, and each time the weave was subtly different from the previous incarnation.

When it was time to split, Tony found himself with both Barnes and the pink-cheeked woman, along with several others. The dance was more difficult with fewer weavers, he found, and he had to focus harder on keeping his movements correct. Then it was easier again with the next split, oddly.

The braid wound up one more time, and the eight of them pressed in close to the pole. The pink-cheeked woman was facing him as the music wound to a halt, and then-- the final step and Tony turned around to face whoever was behind him.

Barnes.

Who stood there, suddenly motionless except for the throb of his pulse in his throat and a quick flick of his tongue as he wet his lips nervously.

Well. It was a possibility they’d both known about, wasn’t it? And it didn’t have to mean anything. Just a harmless bit of fun. Tony’s lips quirked in a half-smile. “Luck of the draw,” he said, and leaned in, intending a quick brush of the lips, more symbolic than real.

That wasn’t what happened, though. Barnes’ lips were soft and warm and yielding, and Tony sank into the kiss without quite intending to, one hand still wound in the ribbon and the other coming up to curl around Barnes’ arm.

Barnes kissed the way he’d done everything else that day, tentative and unsure at first and then with an enthusiasm that stole Tony’s breath away. Whatever else he’d done in the last several years under Hydra’s control, he had, at some point, learned how to _kiss_. Or, perhaps, never forgotten it in the first place. He parted Tony’s lips like water and took a long, slow taste, exploring Tony’s mouth like it might hold the answers to everything he’d ever wanted to know.

It was perfect and wonderful and utterly bewildering.

 


	8. Chapter 8

There was a key to understanding Tony that the Asset believed was just out of reach. Something that maybe the Asset had once known and forgotten. It took the Asset most of the first shift of making the hull repairs to understand that the words coming out of Tony’s mouth and the meanings of them had nothing, usually, to do with what the man actually meant.

Three hours in, and the Asset had been threatened with being spaced; had been called a wide variety of names, none of which were Asset or even _Barnes_ , but instead a collection of holo references and comparisons to freeze-dried food stores; and had also once witnessed the man threaten the Captain with a keel-hauling if he didn’t either _pick that frelling ablative heat shield up and hold it right there, or shut up and get out of the way._

Rogers puffed up indignantly about that, and the Asset thought it might be in everyone’s interests to just do that himself, angling the shielding around Tony and Rogers and affixing the gripper while he was about the task.

Tony set to work immediately fixing the shielding in place, though he didn’t stop berating the Captain, either. “You see that, Cap? Your buddy here didn’t even know he was a person until three days ago and even _he_ understands that you don’t get in the mechanic’s way mid-repair. Now, if you’re not going to help haul out the lines for the next EVA run, you can just go back to doing whatever it is that Captains do.”

Rogers scowled. “You don’t have to do this, Buck,” he said. “It’s not your job to do whatever Tony says.”

The Asset restrained the urge to throw the plating at Rogers. There were a wide variety of things the Asset had been told weren’t his job, but no one had yet bothered to tell him what his job was. The Asset… needed work. It was necessary to him in a way he couldn’t define. “The work needs to be done, Captain,” he said. He might have added a salute if his hands hadn’t been full and his shoulders straining as Tony was using a pneumatic wrench to secure the bolts, and then liberally coating it with thread-locking fluids. There was an undercurrent of something both dark and amusing under the words. The Asset was not being respectful of Rogers. He was not attempting to placate him. He was, in fact, telling Rogers to go straight into the heart of the sun and stay there.

For some reason, that made Tony smile and it made Rogers throw up his hands in disgust. “Fine, fine,” Rogers said. “I’ll send Bruce down to you, if you need an extra pair of hands.”

“You’re the one wants to be out of dock asap,” Tony pointed out. “I’ll take all the _useful_ hands I can get in here.” He stepped in close to the Asset to shoot a bolt through the shielding a few inches from the Asset’s hand. He was close enough that the Asset could feel the heat radiating off his body, could smell his sweat.

The Asset found himself thinking of the festival dance and that moment where he’d touched his mouth to Tony’s. He couldn’t have provided a rational account of _why_ he did it, except that it seemed a part of the dance. Further, he had even less reason for why he’d enjoyed it so thoroughly. The man’s lithe body pressed against his, the way Tony’s mouth had moved under the Asset’s, the taste of sugar and chocolate and empty calories on Tony’s lips.

Useful hands, Tony had said, and the Asset warmed under the praise. Tony, he was discovering, did not give out compliments very often. Even so, the Asset thought Tony had, perhaps been more criticizing Rogers than making a note of the Asset’s usefulness.

“It is good,” he told Tony, seriously, “to be useful.” The end of his words spiraled up a bit, making it more of a question than the Asset had meant. _Don’t you be fishin’ for no accolades, Sergeant Barnes_ , a woman’s voice said, hollow and far away, from something… deep in the Asset’s brain, buried under years and missions and protocols. Something from… _before_.

“There are plenty of people who don’t feel any need to be useful,” Tony said, grunting as the wrench recoiled. “But I don’t care for them much. Neither does Steve, if I’m being honest. He just likes to fret over things. Easier to have him out of the way.”

“Rogers frets,” the Asset said, pondering that thought the way he had to ponder most things. Turning it over in his mind, examining it for truth. “About the Asset. He would fret less if I was not here?” There had been, the Asset thought, at least one handler who had fretted about the Asset, wanted to know everything the Asset was doing, his thoughts, demanded explanations for every decision, punishing each wrong move until the Asset was terrified of even considering a decision, because it could be _wrong_.

Tony, despite his threats, hadn’t yet made a move to _punish_. Tony was, perhaps, pleased with the Asset’s decisions.

“He’d probably fret more if you left,” Tony said. “At least here, he can see that you’re safe. Well, as safe as it ever gets here, which isn’t much.” He dripped lock-tight over the last of the bolts, and stepped back. “There, I think you can let it go now; that should hold.”

“Cryo is safe,” the Asset said. He set his feet, in order to catch the plating if it should fall. Tony was not in a safe position; he was not enhanced the way the Asset was. Falling plate could crush him, break bones and tear skin. The Asset thought, perhaps, Tony valued _safety_ as little as the Asset did. _The Asset is being secured for travel._

An interesting concept. The Asset wondered why. With all the protocols and orders and compliance built in to the Asset’s programming. Why did he have to be secured for travel? Did they -- the handlers -- not trust the Asset or the Asset’s programming? And if they didn’t, why didn’t they? He eyed Tony a moment, wondering if he could ask. “Tony? Clarification?”

“About what?” Tony asked, half his attention on the heat shield. He seemed satisfied, but then picked up the wrench again and began to add redundant bolts.

“Will the Asset be returned to cryo for travel?” He bit at his bottom lip, chewing it, worrying it. He didn’t like cryo. There was a strange pain there, too, because it wasn’t the Asset’s place to like things or dislike them. But Tony had encouraged _liking_. And _wanting_. And _asking_.

Tony glanced at the Asset, a weighing look, then went back to his work. “Mostly we only use cryo for cargo. You’re a person, not cargo. There are a few good reasons to put a living person in cryo,” Tony said thoughtfully. “Mostly to do with them being too sick or injured to live until the next port with adequate medical. Or the long-range colonyships, some of them put colonists in cryo until they reach their destinations. You seem pretty healthy right now, though, and we’re not a colonyship.”

The Asset considered that. He was, he knew, in top form. All diagnostics and self-checks and self-evaluations were giving him back peak performance levels, even allowing for the extra calories from the described and devoured treats, which had been burned off easily in the repairs process. But the Asset was almost always in top form. He got injured from time to time, but he was always healed before being placed in cryo. Was he -- had he been -- _cargo_? “The Asset takes up resources, during travel,” he tried to explain, not sure if he was arguing for, or against being returned to cryo, or just trying to understand why it had been done. “Air, food, water. It is… _suboptimal_.”

“Well, that might be true,” Tony said. “But you’re still a person. And you’re helping out. Earning your keep, as the phrase goes. Not that even useless people should be stuffed into cryo against their will, but they don’t last long aboard working ships like this, not unless they’re paying for the privilege.”

“Tony?” called a voice from the far side of the bay. Banner, the ship’s doctor. “Steve said you had work for me?”

“Nothing in your specialty,” Tony called back, “but I could use a hand. Workstation by the solar scoop there has an analysis of the repairs; can you update it for this heat shield and re-run? And then assemble the lock-collar for the exterior fitting that’s on the bench? You have nice steady hands.”

“I can do that,” Banner agreed. He greeted them with a small smile as he walked by. “Tony treating you all right?” he asked the Asset.

The Asset blinked. He had never particularly considered-- “Tony exhibits wildly erratic behavior,” he said, earnestly. “Verbal cues are difficult to interpret. Concern for the Asset’s safety and well-being are highly rated, if unnecessary. The Asset can provide greater service on less rest or nutrition than is being provided. Instructions, when delivered, are clear. Tony... is _treating me all right_.”

Tony outright cackled, and Banner let out a little laugh. “Yeah, that’s Tony for you,” he agreed. “Erratic and difficult to interpret.” He reached the workstation and began to input instructions. “It was hard for me at first,” he said after a moment, “to get used to not having to provide peak efficiency all the time.”

The Asset inched a little closer to Banner. “ _Everyone_? The whole… the crew? All of the crew, are Assets?” He’d known Rogers was, and Tony. Some sort of enhancement, at least, a machine in his chest where his heart should be. The Asset wasn’t certain what it was, but it was decidedly inhuman. “Where…” He looked around as if he’d somehow missed handlers. “Detached duty?”

Banner’s lips thinned, and he shook his head. “We _left_. We decided that we were people, not property. There are places we can’t go, places that would try to recover us. So we’re not entirely free. But it’s better than being tools and _assets_.”

The Asset found himself perched on a stool without quite knowing how he got there. A radical concept, one that left the Asset feeling unmoored. “Is that even _possible_?” Protocols started pinging in every corner of the Asset’s programming. Runaway assets were dangerous. Runaway assets were to be recovered at all costs. Was… was that what he had done, deciding not to inform Hydra where the Asset was and await pickup? He gestured to the ship as a whole. “Insurgents?”

“Not really,” Banner said. He stopped manipulating the analysis and looked at the Asset directly. “We’re not trying to fight back. We just want to be left alone to live our lives the way _we_ choose, not at the discretion of our handlers. We want to _have_ lives to live, instead of moments of fear and danger before they stuff us back into storage.” He smiled again, that faint, self-deprecating curve. “I think Steve would fight, if there were any hope. Maybe we all would.”

The Asset had not even considered the _possibility_.

There was no telling the time, between cryo and missions and the few times he was erased in order to start with a clear slate, the same way Tony might wipe a computer to delete bugged code, but the Asset recalled, “I led a team, against insurgents. There were no survivors.” There was a horrifying thought, that he could have been sent to recover or kill someone like Tony. Even Rogers, who was aggravating and unnerving -- did he deserve to die?

Did the Asset have the right to choose that, _decide_ that, at all? What… what had he done, and who had chosen it for him, and did any of them have the right? He was questioning the handlers. _He was questioning_.

Tony moved, perhaps to touch the Asset’s arm, and the Asset flinched. Was he going to be punished for malfunctioning?

“Hey,” Tony said softly. “You’re freaking out a little, huh? Take a nice slow breath for me, like this.” He demonstrated, exaggeratedly filling his lungs and then letting it out.

The Asset didn’t know what to do. The food, the dancing, those choices had seemed _harmless_.

“The Asset… the Asset will be punished. Wipe him, start again. Figure it out, worthless, his brain’s too scrambled to set mission parameters.” A multitude of voices came out of his mouth, memories, things handlers had said around him that he could never stop remembering. “Give him ninety seconds, see if that doesn’t bring him around.”

_Pain_. Eels of lightening crawling up from his hands and jangling down from his temples.

Tony’s voice, cutting over all of it, encouraging him to breathe, to open his eyes, to see that he wasn’t there, _you’re not there anymore_.

The Asset jerked back to himself with a harsh breath. Found himself on the floor in the cargo bay, fingers spread, on his hands and knees.

He couldn’t help but look up, to find Tony, wanting to-- Wanting to what? Apologize? That never helped. Sorry didn’t help. _Do it right, do it again, do it right._

“Tony?” Tony would tell him, wouldn’t he? He’d been honest about everything. He couldn’t -- _handlers don’t lie, there’s no reason to lie, why lie to a knife, or a gun. You’re a weapon, that’s all you are._ “Tony?”

“I’m right here,” Tony said. His dark eyes were very intent. “You’re not _there_ anymore. You’re not _theirs_ anymore. You belong to yourself, Barnes. You’re a person. Not an asset. Not cargo, not a _thing_.”

The Asset wasn’t sure he was comfortable with that idea. But when did the Asset’s comfort ever matter? He shifted until he was sitting, palm cold from resting against the floor, and it took him longer than it should have, like pushing his fingers into molten steel. He reached for Tony. “You don’t, either? You don’t belong to anyone?” He wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking, and his fingers brushed down Tony’s cheek. _I don’t belong to anyone. Not even to you._

Tony shook his head. “Not if I can avoid it, no. I’m a person, too.”

The Asset was a person.

A person. Like Tony.

The Asset squeezed his eyes tight, shut, until colors were dancing behind his lids, until lights were flashing and the nerves were protesting.

When he opened them again, it was like the whole world was new.

***

“Landfall aboard the _Avenger_ tends to fall into one of two categories,” Tony told the Asset as they manned the engine room, “quiet and boring, or utter chaos. And I never know which it’s going to be until it actually happens.” Thus, the manning of the engine room, in case mid-flight repairs were needed. The Asset was grateful for another opportunity to _be useful_.

But though they remained alert, and Tony had to manually clear a clogged fuel line, the drop remained fairly quiet. The _Avenger_ drifted down through the atmo like a leaf on the wind and settled on their designated landing pad with barely a bump. The Asset’s estimation of the pilot, Barton, increased significantly, despite his preference for sub-optimal foodstuffs.

Tony closed his toolbox and leaned back against the now-quiet space drive with a gusty sigh. “Right, that’s done.” He took another couple of breaths. “Asgard’s a fun planet. You want to come, when we go out?”

“Very wealthy,” the Asset reported. “At peace with, but not members of the Galactic Council. Treaties have been enforced by Destroyer class vessels. Yes, Tony. I will accompany you.” A faint buzz in his ears, as Tony leaned against the wall to breathe. The man was exhausted, as he should be. The _Avenger_ was not in peak condition, but parts and time could bring her around. “List of requisitions?”

“Got my shopping list right here.” Tony patted the pocket that held his portable. “Come on, let’s wash off the grease and make ourselves presentable.”

When they were cleaned and ready, Tony led the Asset to meet the rest of the crew, and they all followed Rogers down the gangplank. They were met by two Asgardians, as different as day and night.

One was tall, broad-shouldered and blond, carrying an ion displacement weapon at his belt. The other was narrow, somewhat shorter, and beautiful, with long black hair and clothing designed to draw the eye to his slender, white throat and pleasing shape.

“My friends, so good to see you,” the blond thundered. “What riches have you brought us, this time?”

The dark-haired man rolled green eyes expressively. “All in good time, brother. I am more interested in the addition to the crew.” He tipped his head with a rich, luscious smile. “I want him. Acquire him for me.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Tony stepped to the side, just a little, putting himself more squarely between Loki and Barnes. “Odinson,” he warned. The brothers were excellent fences, but Loki never failed to put Tony’s back up, one way or another.

“Anthony,” Loki said, eyes never leaving Barnes’s face. “So delightful to see you once again. I look forward to an evening’s revelry, where you entertain us all with tales of the stalwart crew’s adventures. Will you do me the honor of presenting me to the newest crew member? I should so like to meet him.”

Technically, that would have been Steve’s duty, if the _Avenger_ followed anything like Asgard protocols, but Loki had almost immediately latched onto Tony as the only one with anything remotely resembling formal manners. Steve had rolled his eyes, and Clint had openly mocked him for his expert navigation of protocol -- it _was_ an odd thing for a mechanic to know -- but even those two had to admit, a little grease to smooth the gears had worked wonders.

And, noting the glint in Loki’s eyes, he’d already assessed that there was _something_ going on, and that Tony and Steve were at the center of it.

Loki, in addition to his role as negotiator for his brother’s smuggling operation, held a more legitimate position as a member of Asgard’s courtesan’s guild. The brothers belonged to the most powerful family in Asgard, so the high-brow whoring wasn’t necessary. Loki did it for power, for information, and to hold influence over other nobles. Many skills were required of an official courtesan. Loki was expert in all of them.

Tony dusted off his old diplomatic skills and forced himself to step aside, revealing Barnes. “Thor, Loki, allow me to present Mr. Barnes, recently recovered from unwilling service to Hydra. He’s still recovering, so be gentle.” He gestured toward the Odinsons. “Barnes, this is Thor Odinson and his brother Loki, good friends to the _Avenger_ and her crew.”

Loki extended his hand to Barnes with grace, a delicate flip of his fingers, throwing back the lace on his sleeve to reveal shapely wrists. When Barnes took his hand, giving Tony a puzzled stare, Loki sank to one knee, the angle of his chin and the flutter of his eyelashes spelling out in detail what position he was invoking, offering, and the slow way he resumed his feet was designed to draw the eye to his lithe form. “It is beyond my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master Barnes. Welcome to our humble planet.”

Clint made a sound that was out of place and inappropriate, but utterly Clint and completely distracting from Loki’s display of sensual submission. Tony could have kissed him.

Barnes, on the other hand, didn’t look away from Loki. He raised the man’s white hand to his face, as if he intended to kiss the back of Loki’s hand, then turned Loki’s hand over and nuzzled at the wrist. “Class G pheromones,” he reported. “Illegal or restricted on most core words. Strips away inhibitions and makes pliant the will. Smells _pretty_.”

“That’s Loki for you,” Tony agreed, though he wanted to pull Barnes away from the Asgardian courtesan. He flexed his hands and didn’t let himself tap restlessly at the reactor in his chest. “Are we ready to discuss trade?” he asked Thor instead.

“Of course, my friends.” Thor put one enormous arm around Steve and the other around his brother and directed them out of the docking station. Barnes was examining his hand, rubbing absently at his flesh wrist with metal fingers, then bringing it up to his nose again, sampling the remains of Loki on his skin. It might have been cute, if it was anyone else in the ‘verse except Loki.

Then again, it might not have been.

Barnes didn’t even look back at Tony, who he’d been following around the the last several days like a lost puppy, instead practically skipping ahead to linger near Loki’s side. Loki was a pretty man, even Tony could admit that, with charm and grace and practically oozing sexuality. But it felt… weird. Tony kept looking over his shoulder, aware that his shadow had gone missing and, like Peter Pan in the old legends, missing it.

The Odinsons owned an entire docking tower. At the bottom levels were their personal spaces, a small bar and casino, and other sundries. Thor had put a table aside for them to discuss the recent supplies that might or might not have been illegally salvaged. The newsfeeds were jumping with stories about happenings over several Core systems, sports results, a high profile assassination, business news. A breakthrough in propulsion systems for atmo use by Stark Industries. Rumors of a massive reorg at that particular business. Bain Industrial’s buyout of Resilient.

“Come, Master Barnes, join me here,” Loki said, indicating the low seat next to his personal divan. “I am eager to hear your opinion on our little luxuries, foodstuffs, and the finest intoxicants.”

Barnes folded himself obediently onto cushions and allowed Loki to hand feed him like he was a pet or toy.

Tony wanted to snarl. He couldn’t -- he’d told Barnes himself that Barnes was a person, which meant the man was free to accept Loki’s attention or not. It was just odd, that was all. Loki generally didn’t bother with anyone who didn’t demonstrate high breeding or wealth or both.

It was possible that Loki was trying to twist Tony’s chain, because that was the sort of relationship they had, by stealing away Tony’s... His what? Self-imposed bodyguard and helper? Nonsense. There was nothing between Tony and Barnes that should make Tony jealous. Loki had slipped up this time.

Tony dragged his attention from Barnes and back to the negotiations between Thor and Steve.

Thor was as affable and friendly as his brother was sly, but he was a hard negotiator, viewing the whole thing as a challenge to prove himself. For Thor, planetside and in possession of a wide variety of ships, things like atmospheric regulators, cores, fuel, radiation deflectors, and carbon scrubbers were theory, not life and death.

“Did you hear the rumor, Captain?” Thor confided. “Hammer Tech claims to have discovered a new core element. Testing phases are still in place, but there could be a new arc-reactor engine within the next eighteen months. Put those Mark Vs to shame.”

“From Hammer Tech?” Tony said. “Eighteen _years_ , maybe. They’re copycats, not innovators.”

“A passionate response,” Loki commented, looking up from his seat. Barnes was practically rubbing his face against Loki’s pale fingers, expression one of shivering delight.

Tony turned his attention to Steve, to see how Steve was dealing with Barnes’ sudden throw over of loyalty. (Loyalty to whom, exactly? Tony? Ha! The crew, double hah! And he’d practically run away from Steve, except when Steve forced the issue.) Steve had a strange, almost nostalgic look on his face.

“Bucky always was a terrible flirt,” Steve said with a shrug, as if reading Tony’s mind. “Dame or fella in every port. It’ll be good for him. Remind him of who he is.”

Tony swallowed his response and turned back to Loki, determined not to let Loki see his discomfort. “Of course I’m passionate,” he said. “I’m the one who has to keep things functional. I’d refuse to set foot on a ship with Hammer Tech at her core.”

“Indeed,” Loki said, easily. “Shall I quote you on that? I’m certain the financial reports would find your opinion delicious.”

“Yes, I’m sure they would,” Tony said through clenched teeth. He’d never quite figured out whether Loki actually knew who he really was, or if Loki was just pretending to have put the pieces together just to poke at Tony’s underbelly. It was part of their game. “The financial districts are always eager for the opinions of smugglers and pirates.”

Tony glanced at Barnes again, and looked away. Loki was winning already, gorram it.

“Well, who best to tell them the fault in their products but those who put them through the most strenuous testing conditions?” Loki stretched then, full of careless indolence. “I have reached my fill of entertainment, here, brother. I am in need of good company and, perhaps, a little privacy. Should you like to join me, Master Barnes? I will return you to the good crew before they’re set to depart, and I believe I can assist with the near spine-breaking amount of _tension_ you’re carrying around. The doors to my home are open to the rest of you, for an afternoon’s delight, if you need it.” He made a gesture and a scatter of deep emerald cards appeared on the table.

Clint whooped and snapped one up. “Guess you’re off the hook this time, Tony,” Clint said, pocketing his token.

“Imagine my relief,” Tony said, too out of sorts to engage in their usual banter.

Steve tipped his eyes up in an extravagant roll. “I prefer to do my courting the old fashioned way,” he said.

“And thus you’ve had no companionship for many a month,” Loki commented carelessly. “Come, Master Barnes.”

Barnes got to his feet at Loki’s word, then turned, one eyebrow going up as his gaze fell on Tony.

Tony smiled feigning a nonchalance he absolutely could not summon. “Your choice,” he said. “Go on if you want to.” Loki delighted in annoying Tony, but neither of the Odinsons had ever betrayed the _Avenger_ ’s crew. Tony picked up one of the emerald tokens and turned it in fingers that couldn’t remain still, though he had no intention of using it. “Have fun.”

“Fun,” Barnes said, like he wasn’t really sure what that meant, but wasn’t adverse to figuring it out. His gave his attention back to Loki, who took his arm and evaporated in a cloud of silver, delighted laughter.

“Frelling showoff,” Tony grumbled, throwing the calling card back onto the table.

“My brother does delight in his little toys,” Thor said. “Do not despair, friend. If the members of my brother’s household are of no delight to you, I should be happy to have a drinking companion. Our business is most profitable, deserving of celebration! Or, some credit on your account, for the ship, perhaps our stores might hold an afternoon’s entertainment?”

“I’m... going to go back to the ship,” Tony said. He wasn’t in the mood for drinking, and Steve would handle the ship’s requisitions. “Let Natasha take my shore leave instead.” He let Thor grip his hand warmly, because that was only polite, but made his way back to the ship at top speed.

He had a lot of work to do in the engine room, cleanup leftover after the repairs on Mithra Station. Those loose drive plates were a top priority, and the crank for the catalyzer had skipped a couple of times, so it probably needed to be recalibrated.

And it would give him some privacy to make a shielded call.

***

Loki’s staff, a slender, golden rod with a forked prong, was another weapon, a plasma generator, but also contained a number of microfunctions, including a short-range molecular conveyance that returned them both from the luncheon area to Loki’s private chambers. The conveyance platform was the only obvious way outside of the chamber, but the Asset detected airshifts that indicated a false wall. The thickness in the walls suggested an underground structure.

“A secure facility,” the Asset noted as they stepped off the platform.

Loki’s bedchamber was rich with luxury, bed furs and silken sheets and piles of pillows. Art from a dozen different planets adorned the walls, and the carpeting was so soft and rich, it was a shame to let his second-hand greasy workboots touch it.

“So,” Loki said, brushing the Asset’s hair back and looking him over critically. “You’re very handsome, utter perfection. Except someone’s scrambled that brain of yours just like an egg. There’s a certain look to it, you know. A hollowness in the eyes, a slackness in the mouth. Someone built a wall around your soul, your ka, your id, if you will, and you don’t know who you are anymore. There is a darkness in you that resists the light, that doesn’t even remember what walking under a sun feels like. We must be about this delicately.”

The Asset didn’t answer. There were no questions there. The words prickled, but not like Rogers’ had. It was uncomfortable, like his skin being rubbed with a needle. Not enough to penetrate, but a scratch, and the knowledge that at any second, the needle might stab home.

“Can you tell me, dear one,” Loki said, “who is it that holds your leash? Do you recall, a handler, an owner?”

While the Asset was considering it, Loki was divesting him of the clothing that Tony and Rogers had provided, stripping him down. The Asset could not have protested, even if he’d wanted to. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Want.

Such a small word to fill him with such conflicting emotions.

What did he _want_?

When had he ever been allowed to want anything? Tony encouraged him to want, to pick, to choose. He’d been allowed so much freedom, even in little, inconsequential matters.

Was Loki trying to take it from him, to report him to his masters, to let them know where they might find their tool. If that was Loki’s plan, hiding the information would benefit the Asset not at all. And yet, why make it easy for him?

At the same time, Asgard was outside of the Galactic Council. They made no use of enhancile soldiers, used technology so far beyond the rest of the galaxy’s as to be considered magic. They had no truck with the Council, no treaties with Hydra. The Asset was safe, here.

“Pierce,” the Asset told him. “Director of Hydra.”

“Hydra are unimaginative fascists,” Loki said, waving them away with a sweep of his delicate fingers. “Come this way.”

The Asset was fully naked, and he was led into a room with a deep, heated pool.

“Water,” Loki told him, kneeling and dipping his fingers into it. “Do you know it? A bath?”

“I know,” the Asset told him.

Loki stripped out of his own clothing and stepped into the water. When he was waist-deep, he reached back for the Asset. “Join me?”

An invitation and not an order, but neither was he asking for an opinion.

The Asset reached for Loki’s fingers, sloshing through the water with nothing like the smooth grace the other man exhibited.

“There you are, you beautiful creature,” Loki said. “How remarkable you are. Do you swim?”

“I…” A crinkle of his forehead. Was that a skill the Asset possessed? Not a standard mode of operations. Had he done a water-approach to target before?

“Well, let us see, then,” Loki suggested. “I won’t let you drown. The body may remember what the mind has forgotten.”

Loki coaxed him into swimming, and apparently the body did know the motions, the technique for floating, the way to pull the water and move him through it. It was awkward, though, and he tended to sink or drift to the left.

“The arm,” the Asset spluttered after he had yet again sunk beneath the surface.

“You know _how_ to swim,” Loki told him. “But you have not done so, since your own, fine limb, was replaced. You haven’t learned to compensate for it. You were probably brought up on a planet where water is plentiful. You have a natural grace for it. You learned as a child.”

The Asset was shivering, even in the warm water, steam roiling off his skin as he stood, chest-deep.

“Shh, child,” Loki said. “Let it come, if it will. Don’t force it. Don’t reach for it. Lay back, let yourself float. I’m here. I’ll take care of you.” A hand under his left arm kept him upright as he obeyed. “Eyes closed. Feel the water around you, the sun on your face. It is always sunny, is it not, when you swim? The water is cooler than this, a delight against your skin. Someone holds you and tells you to kick your feet. Do you recall this?”

The faintest smell, a tang of… something on his tongue. Like sweetness that melts as soon as he bites it.

_Don’t you forget t’ put on sunscreen! You an’ Steve’ll both look like lobsters, all day in’a sun._

_Rubbing lotion on a pair of skinny, pale shoulders._

_A boy’s face, nose dotted with freckles. A wide grin. The faded rose around one eye, the remains of last week’s fight._

_Don’t go so deep, Bucky!_

_The boy is short, so much shorter, and his lungs heave with the effort of keeping up with his larger friend. A hint of shame: he forgot to wait for Steve._

“I think you may have found something in there,” Loki said. “Tell it to me.”

And the Asset talked: the beach, his Ma, swimming with his friend. The bottom of the… lake? is thick with mud; it squelches between his toes. His sister, shrieking with dismay when he drops a tadpole down the front of her swim clothes.

“Well, that was a pretty little thing, was it not?”

The Asset opened his eyes, surprised at first to see Loki there instead of beach and sunlight.

“Steve,” the Asset croaked. He could only barely see the lines of the boy in the face of the man he’d become, but somehow. Somehow.

It was the same.

“Fascinating,” Loki said. His smile was calculating, cool, and sinuous. Almost snake-like in its precision. “What you must learn, about your memories, is that they are real. They are there. You must pan for them, squatting in the dirt and mud, and find the shining nuggets therein. It will not be easy. It will not be painless. But you can throw off your collar and be free, once again.”

The Asset stretched out a hand and touched Loki’s cheek. “How do you know?”

“Because it was done to me, child,” Loki said, closing his eyes and leaning into the Asset’s hand, letting his cheek rest against the palm. “I know the look because I have seen it in the mirror.”

The Asset didn’t respond. He didn’t know how.

“Lay back again. I shall wash your hair, share with you some pleasure,” Loki offered. “And we twin souls will then return to the world, better geared to face that which will always come for us.”

“Let’s.”

The Asset surrendered himself to Loki’s care.

 


	10. Chapter 10

The call went through, staticky and uneven, but even so, it was soothing to see Pepper’s face. Tony’s hand hovered over the control board. “Security?”

“JARVIS is holding at level 7,” Pepper said, consulting a readout to the side of her screen.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief -- these calls were always risky, no matter how many substations and backtracks he bounced the signal through -- and hit the video feed. Pepper’s face lit up as she saw him. “You’re looking better than the last time we talked,” she said.

“Last time, I was lacking direction. And bored. It’s not a good combination for me,” Tony admitted. “But that lost Hydra ship was exactly where you said it would be. It had some tricky failsafes -- we had to scram before we got very much, but I’m at least 85% certain that Maya was on board. I’ve got data for JARVIS to analyze; maybe he can tell why she risked that much exposure and which way she went when she left.”

“That’s great!” Pepper said. Her eyes flicked to the sidescreen and her hands moved on her board. “I can receive that when you’re ready.”

“I’m splitting it between subwaves 4 and 7,” Tony told her, and sent the data packet. It would take hours to bounce all the way to Pepper’s location in the little dribs and drabs that looked like static and noise to the Galactic Council’s snoops.

Pepper just nodded and keyed in the receive commands. “And what else?” she prompted. “You look too alert to have spent the last week just doing data analysis.”

“We picked up a prisoner from the Hydra ship. He was in cold storage, was the only reason he survived the blasts.”

Pepper winced. “She’s still using it as a weapon?”

“Looks like it,” Tony agreed. “She may not have had much choice. The data may tell us more.”

“Hopefully,” Pepper agreed. “What about this prisoner?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said truthfully. “He’s... damaged. They did things to him, Pep, that I can’t... Erased his mind, over and over. Made him into a weapon, a tool. But he’s somehow latched onto me, and he follows me around like a lost kitten.” He almost mentioned the kiss, but it probably just been some memory glitch triggered by the requirements of the dance. Anyway, it hadn’t happened again.

“Mm,” Pepper hummed. “Don’t get too attached, Tony. You know how it’s likely to turn out.”

“It’s fine,” Tony said, waving it away. “He’s enjoying the finest pleasurehouse the planet has to offer, right now.” Which suggested that Barnes wasn’t nearly as attached to Tony as it had seemed, shipboard. Maybe he only liked Tony because Tony had no problem with telling Steve to go to frell and leave Barnes alone about his missing memories, or because Tony was the one who’d fixed his prosthetic. “I want to make him an arm,” Tony blurted.

“A what?”

“An _arm_ ,” Tony repeated. “He’s missing one, and the prosthetic he’s got is... It’s a frelling Frankenstein’s monster. I could do it _so_ much better.”

“I have no doubt,” Pepper said. She pointed at him. “Don’t get too attached,” she repeated.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Tony said. “It’s just a project. You know I need something to keep my hands busy.”

“I know,” Pepper agreed, shaking her head fondly. Then she sobered. “ _He_ ’s moving, Tony. He’s doing something with the board, re-organizing... I don’t like it. You need to hurry up and find her.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” Tony pointed out. “Space is pretty big, in case you hadn’t heard.”

“Are you going to be on-planet for long?” she asked.

“Another half-day, at least,” Tony said. “After this, I don’t know when we’ll be landbound again.”

“We’ll do a preliminary analysis on the data as it comes in,” Pepper promised. “Call me back before you go, and I’ll give you what I’ve got then.”

“Will do,” Tony said. “I miss you.”

“We miss you, too. Talk to you soon.” She cut the connection before he could draw it out longer. Which was probably for the best, from a security standpoint, but left him missing her in ways that made his lungs ache for air.

He cleared the comms log and then slumped back in the chair. He couldn’t go home until it was legal for him to exist under his own recognizance again. As it was, as an enhancile, he was legally nothing more than property. Unable to cast his vote for Council. Unable to inherit his company. Unable, even, to defend his life.

He had to find Maya, and soon. The nanites she carried in her blood were the only hope Tony had of convincing key Council members that it was in their best interest to pass the Inhuman Rights Act. If only he knew where she was _going_.

Never mind. He would call Pepper back later, and she’d give him another breadcrumb to chase after. In the meantime, he had an arm to design.

***

“Gonna take another day,” Steve reported, banging on the engineering deck’s wall. “Canned air’s in short supply. Another one of those Rising Tide terrorist attacks, blew out a whole warehouse, set fire to half the district. Had to pay a premium, but we gotta breathe.” Steve sounded cranky about that, as if he would be happier with a crew that wasn’t oxy dependent. “We got a bonus for those med-packs, though, so we can afford it.”

Clint came in behind, carrying a box and dragging a grav pallet behind him. “Food and water,” he announced. “Help me load it up?”

Barnes, too, made his way back onto the ship, shortly after the last of the food had been stowed. He was walking slower than normal and Tony had to stop to stare at him.

He was clean. His ragged hair was shiny, and had been neatly trimmed and pulled back from his face to show off those cheekbones and frame his eyes, a softer grey than before, more like stormclouds than gunsteel. The scruff of his beard had been shaved off, and instead of wearing cast-off bits and pieces from the crew, someone had taken the time to put together an outfit. It was still practical shipboard clothing, but the deep maroon of the outer shirt set off his complexion, and the denims clung to his legs so well that Tony could watch the flex of muscles in his thighs. He wore black boots with good grip and the faint glow at the heel indicated they were magnetic, in case of unexpected grav-loss.

He stopped at the base of the gangplank, peering up into the interior. “Permission to board?”

“We’re not the Deep Navy,” Tony said, almost on autopilot, because he couldn’t look away. “Just come aboard.”

“Tony,” Barnes said, coming up the gangplank. He stopped no more than two paces away, the bag over his shoulder swinging against his back.

And then he did something utterly unforgivable.

He smiled. Tony had seen him smile before, a shy, brilliant flash of teeth that lit up his entire face, but this was new. This wasn’t a child’s smile, someone who’d recently discovered a favored foodstuff, or the gentle upturn of lips that expressed gratitude and relief that he wasn’t being punished. This was a wholly new expression, a deliberate smirk, something hot and wicked and wanting. It did things to Tony’s stomach, twisting it in knots.

“I brought you a present,” Barnes said.

“You... what?” Tony was almost too dazed to think. Barnes had been a striking man before; whatever Loki had done had _transformed_ him. “You did?”

“I did,” Barnes said. He offered the bag. “You said we needed ‘em.” The bag was heavier than it looked.

Tony blinked and opened it, peering into its depths. A housing unit for the graphine spinner. An upgraded chip for the nav-computer, and a half-dozen of the calibrators for the radial thrusters. High end parts, either brand new or refurbished by the manufacturing technicians. Small, but valuable. He could make the _Avenger’s_ engine work like new with these parts. It was like summer solstice.

“What... where did you get all this?” Tony asked. “Wait, strike that, I probably don’t want to know the answer.” He couldn’t quite stop himself from throwing an arm around Barnes in a half-hug. “This is... this is _amazing_.” He grinned, dancing from foot to foot like an overeager toddler. “Thank you. This is... I’m speechless. Well, I’m never actually speechless, because it’s me, but I just can’t... Wow. Really, this is great.”

Up close, Barnes smelled really good, too. Fancy soap and cologne and spices from his last meal. His expression was more mobile than it had been before, too, his eyes not glued to the floor most of the time. He gave Tony a half shrug, acknowledging gratitude, but apparently not sure what to do with it.

Frell it, Tony was going to have to be grateful to Loki, wasn’t he? Had he _fucked_ Barnes’ brain back into function? Tony shied away from that mental image, and took a quick step toward engineering. “It’s a good thing we’re held up for another day,” Tony added, half-babbling. “It’ll take me a while to get some of this installed.” He took another few steps down the passageway. Barnes followed, and something inside of Tony loosened.

Tony reached engineering several long strides ahead of Barnes, already half-lost in planning the most efficient way to get the upgrades installed. The nav-chip was the most critical, but it had to go in after the gravitron emitter was properly calibrated. The waveform calibrators were easy to install, but a little time-consuming, and...

Barnes came into the room as Tony started unpacking the bag and laying out the parts on the workspaces. Tony waved the driveshaft plating at him with a grin. “You can bring me presents any time!”

Barnes flashed another of those bright, shy smiles, then retreated to the stool he’d claimed before. As soon as he sat down, he made a noise that closely approximated a strangled whimper, and shot back up.

“You okay?” Tony asked.

“Just sore,” Barnes said. He scuttled across the floor to the cot Tony used for quick naps and threw himself down on his stomach, pillowing his head on folded arms.

Aaand now Tony was done being grateful for Loki.

***

The tangle of memories that he had unearthed settled fitfully. They slid around in his brain, like loose cargo during maneuvers, trying to find a safe place to land. There weren’t many.

The fragment of an afternoon at the beach.

A woman in a red dress who’d walked right past him without seeing him, eager to talk with… someone else.

_I’m invisible. I’m turning into you, it’s like some horrible dream._

_Don’t take it so hard, maybe she’s got a friend._

Just the faintest fragment of a showman… Stark’s galactic expo, hadn’t it been? The future, now.

_Ain’t we gonna go dancin’, Sarge._

He probably owed Rogers something. Acknowledgement, at least.

The Asset drowsed instead, letting the thoughts settle.

The ringing clang of something dropped onto the metal floor jerked him into awareness.

“Howard Stark!” And not the young man, vivacious and showy, that he remembered, but an older one, white hair, blood on his lips. The Asset clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to capture the word before it escaped.

Tony, working on the grav engine, had frozen. Slowly, he turned to look at the Asset. His skin had paled by several shades, and one hand, holding the wrench he’d just recovered from where it had dropped, was clenched so tightly the knuckles were white. “What?”

“Howard Stark,” the Asset repeated. “He’s…” What did he know about Stark? “An industrial mogul, businessman. Inventor. The first arc-reactor drive. The… uh. Precursor to repulsor tech? He was big, during the war. Worked for SSR.”

“I know who he is,” Tony said. “He’s...” Tony reached over and patted the side of the BEHS drive. “Inventor of some of the best space drives that money can buy. Why did you just suddenly...” Tony waved indistinctly to indicate the Asset’s blurt of the name.

The Asset wanted to sit up and scrub at his face with both hands, but the tingle in his nerves told him that probably wasn’t a good idea just yet. His thighs and his lower back still ached from Loki’s hands on him. “Barnes. Uh. Knew him.” He wasn’t quite ready to admit that he was Barnes, because… he wasn’t entirely sure he was. Maybe he had been, once. But that person, that person was on the other side of calibration. That person had never experienced a wipe, and the Asset didn’t know whether he pitied or envied that man.

“Sure,” Tony said carefully. “Lot of people knew about him. He was pretty well known, back in the day.”

The Asset turned it over in his head a few times. Picked a voice out of the myriad in his head. He knew how to imitate a voice, how to select an accent. Blend in, disappear. “ _Emission signature is unusual. Alpha and beta ray neutral. Though I doubt Rogers picked up on that. Seems harmless enough._ ”

“Oh, dren, you _knew him_ ,” Tony whispered. He went from pale to flushed and then back to pale, swaying on his feet, eyes flicking all around the room, as if he were seeing things that weren’t there. “And Rogers-- _our_ Rogers? Steve? He knew Steve?” Tony whispered hoarsely. “He was... Oh, _frell_.” Tony bolted for the head, where he violently threw up.

The Asset had done something wrong. He had done something really, really _wrong_. He flinched and got to his feet. He didn’t know what he’d done. “Tony?” He stopped, just out of range, close enough to aid, not close enough to cause Tony any unnecessary agitation. “It’s old data. Bits and pieces. It’s… beaches and the way my mother’s bread smelled… what did I say?”

“He _made_ you,” Tony rasped, not looking up at him. “You were one of the original subjects. You and Steve? He was. He was part of the team that made the serum. He made you. And then they made you _kill him_.” Tony choked, almost vomited again.

“He’s dead? I don’t… remember that,” the Asset said. “It’s all a jumble. Did--” A sudden, horrible thought. “ _You_ knew him.” It wasn’t even a question. Tony knew that man. Howard had meant something to Tony, beyond an inventor, beyond the maker of his ship’s drive.

How did the Asset apologize for something he couldn’t remember? How to comfort someone who… who was the Asset’s _own victim_? That… he clutched at his head, trying to settle the swirling thoughts or he was going to have to shove Tony aside and puke as well.

Tony ran the water, rinsed his mouth out and spat. “That’s frelling messed up.” He spat again and ran the cycler. He glanced up at the Asset, his eyes sharp and a little too wide. “It must have been someone who knew,” he said. “Someone who would find it _fitting_ , for my-- for Howard to die at the hand of his own creation. And to have it look like a _drive failure_ , which...” He trailed off, apparently overcome by the irony.

“I _don’t know._ ” The Asset turned it over in his head again. He was going to have to acknowledge it at some point, might as well start now. “I. You’re right. Barnes. I. I knew Howard. Not well. Not like Steve. Poster boy in his fancy costume.” He gazed at Tony in something close to agony. “I’m sorry.”

“It... wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t _you_.” Tony pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “If you happen to remember who ordered it, that’s the head I want. Not yours.”

It was too much to process, too much to figure out. The-- Barnes wanted the silence back. The endless black of not knowing, just following orders, just… not having to _think_. It was painful and it was ugly and he wondered how many times he’d have to deal with this. Dragging some memory up and discovering that it wasn’t gold at all, but dross. It was dren. It was… he was… some filthy, dangerous thing.

“I’m sorry.”

Words. Barnes turned on his heel and fled into the depths of the ship. There were a lot of places to hide on a ship of this size. The _Avenger_ could carry over a dozen crewmembers at full capacity. There were nooks and crannies and little cargo storage units. Barnes couldn’t _leave_. He couldn’t. There was too much here, and who knew if it would be any better elsewhere. But he didn’t have to be so… so _present_ , for a while.

It probably wasn’t an accident that he found his way back to the cargo pod where they’d locked him in. He engaged the mechanism and pulled the door shut behind him.

Keep the crew safe.

From whatever he was.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Tony didn’t know why it was worse, that Barnes had been one of his father’s test subjects. If anything, that ought to make it better -- a measure of revenge against one of the scientists responsible for making Barnes into an object, a possession, instead of a man.

And Steve, too, because they’d been experiments together. _I doubt Rogers picked up on that._ Frell, Barnes had captured Howard’s self-satisfied, smug tone _exactly_.

No wonder Steve didn’t trust Tony. Tony probably reminded him of Howard, at least subconsciously.

Tony laughed at the irony, and if there was a note of hysteria in it, then it was well-deserved hysteria. Dren, what a tangle.

It might be the Gordian Knot of tangles, and even if Tony wanted to go about the elegant solution of chopping straight through it -- and when had the direct approach ever worked for him? -- he didn’t have time. The flicker of his terminal alerted him that communications were signaling for him.

Tony flicked the switch and waited for the static on the screen to resolve into -- oh, thank frell, Pepper. “Pepper,” he said, “light of my life. Thank dren it’s you. Is it tonight already? I might have forgotten to call. I was... busy.”

“I have good news, bad news, and worse news,” Pepper told him. Her eyes flicked to the side of her monitor. “Worst news; I had to pull JARVIS offline. For his safety as well as our own. We managed a server sync before everything went to frell, but his main systems…” She glanced up at him. “We have the backup. We do. Everything’s there. But Tony. We had to slag the main computer banks. We can’t afford for JARVIS to fall into the wrong hands.”

The day just kept getting worse and worse. JARVIS... offline? It was like telling him his child was in a coma. “Why?” he demanded. “What the frell is going on out there?”

“ _He_ was in your house,” Pepper said. “I don’t know, but he came back to SI and started issuing orders about a possible trojan program. One of the IT guys, he probably didn’t even know what he was looking at… We had to act. We didn’t have a lot of time. Jim has a plan. You might even get to see him.”

“In my _house?_ ” That was good for a shiver of disgust and fear. “And that’s the bad news and the good news, I guess,” he said. He rubbed at his face. “Okay. Good work, Pep.”

“There’s one more piece of news,” She tried giving him a quick smile. It almost looked real. “Maya’s ship had a leak. We spotted her, confirmed sighting.” A quick flicker of a still shot, probably from a security camera. “Her coil was busted, most likely in the conflict with Hydra. She stopped at Port Knowhere for repairs. As far as we can tell, she hasn’t left yet. Jim’s already on his way. He has the bots and JARVIS’s drive with him. If he has to leave before you get there, he said to tell you remember Physical Engineering 201, prank on the professor. That’ll get the boys back to you.”

Thank the void for Rhodey. “Understood,” Tony said. “Now I just have to talk the Captain into a stop at Knowhere. Tell Rhodey I’m coming.” _And_ Maya was there, at least for a while. Dren, maybe this nightmare would be over soon.

***

Barnes was sobbing.

He didn’t know how to stop. Aching breaths punched out of his lungs in gasps. He could barely suck air to get another one out, but they wouldn’t stop. He didn’t know how to make it stop. The door was secure against him; he’d tested it twice. He wasn’t safe.

He gagged. Choked on it.

Once he’d started the cascade of memory, it was like being in an avalanche of them. Too late for the pebbles to complain and he knew he was going to be crushed under the weight of it.

He’d killed people. He’d killed so _many_ people.

The faces presented themselves; mission reports. Surveillance photos.

Howard Stark.

Who was indirectly responsible for saving his life. If Howard’s formula hadn’t worked on Steve, Barnes would have died on a medical table under Hydra’s knife.

More. He’d killed the president of New Pasifica, who’d been fighting for… Barnes sucked a breath. _Inhuman rights._ The tide was turning. The laws that bound an enhancile to the government or company that created them were being questioned. The president had been campaigning for better biological matches for the serums, rather than going after the poor, sick, and hungry and slaughtering them by the thousands to get a handful of successful soldiers at the end.

The door rattled, then opened.

Barnes cringed away, not wanting Tony to see him, to look on the _thing_ that Barnes was.

“Bucky?” Not Tony. Rogers, suddenly full of righteous indignation. “Buck, what are you doing locked in here? Who did this?”

And it was Steve. Not Rogers, but _Steve_. The memories rolled again, hundreds of them, pummeling at him, battering him down, and he couldn’t frelling breathe with the force of it. “T-- Tony,” Barnes managed, but that wasn’t right. “To--tony knows--” It wasn’t entirely true that Tony knew everything, but he knew enough. He knew enough to explain it, maybe.

“Tony?” Steve sounded shocked, panting and breathless for a brief moment, and then he was gone, footsteps ringing on the floor as he strode away, leaving the door open behind him. “ _Tony, you gorram hazmot!_ ”

“Wait,” Barnes gasped, rolling to his feet. “Steve--”

He was talking to nothing but air. Steve moved _fast_. He was quick, he was graceful, he was lethal. At least a match for Barnes, if they were both fighting with their full capacity. Barnes was faster; Steve knew the ship better.

He _barely_ got there in time.

“Tony, you frelling coward!” Steve bellowed, charging into engineering, where Tony was sitting at the console in the back.

He looked up in shock at Steve’s furious charge. His eyes flicked to Barnes, back to Steve, and his expression changed to one of resignation, but his chin lifted stubbornly. “Go on, then.”

“Steve, no!” Barnes put on a burst of speed, got between Steve and Tony. “He didn’t… he didn’t do anything. _I_ did. I locked myself in. To keep him safe, you safe. I’m not safe, Steve, listen to me. _Listen to me_ , you stubborn little punk.”

Steve was pushing forward, bit in his teeth, but that last phrase brought him up short. “...Bucky?”

Frell. Barnes didn’t really want to deal with this right now, but… “Yeah, pal. Little bit me. I know you. Your mom… your mom’s name was Sarah. You… you used to wear newspapers in your shoes, when it rained. Brooklyn, right?” He held up his hands in surrender and backed away. “Just. Not everything, okay. It hurts. Stop pushin’ me.”

“Okay, Buck,” Steve said, and gave him a smile that was so bright it was like staring into the sun. And then a cloud passed over him and he said, “Who said you’re not safe, Buck? Was that Tony? Did he somehow convince you--”

“I didn’t do a frelling thing,” Tony snapped, “except put the pieces together.”

“What pieces?!” Steve demanded.

Barnes broke, choked out a sob. “I killed Howard Stark, Stevie. Rigged the shuttle engine to explode. Others. So many. I don’t… I didn’t want to, but I did it. _I don’t know how they made me_.” That terrified him, more than anything. That those little bits of himself that he was picking up, that they would be, could be, snatched away from him without warning. That he could do those things and never think about them again, that he would go right back to that… thing. “I ain’t worth this, Steve. Y’should _space me_.”

“No!” That was Steve and Tony at the same time.

“No, Buck, I ain’t _spacing_ you, gorram it,” Steve said. “You’re only just starting to come back!”

“I told you,” Tony said, more quietly but just as earnest, “I don’t blame you for that. The blame goes to the person who sent you out.”

Steve paused, gaze shifting over Bucky’s shoulder to look at Tony. He frowned. “Why would you need to blame anyone?” he asked. “Who were any of those people to you?”

“Oh.” Maybe it was because Bucky was just thinking about Howard. The young one, the one from the Expo, the one from SSR. The one that Steve had a semi-friendly rivalry with over a girl -- Peggy Carter, her name slipped into his mind like it had always been there. Maybe it was the way Tony’s face had paled, and then paled again when Barnes had done his mimicry. That had always gotten a laugh with the Commandos, other test subjects and some skilled soldiers.

But suddenly the voice was familiar; a little lower in pitch, a little richer, the way it bent around the vowels. And that showman’s smile, how could he have missed it? How had _Steve_ missed it?

The timing would have been right; Howard was old when the Winter Soldier had killed him, the woman with him. He would have had time to father a child, to raise him almost to manhood. “You’re Howard’s _son_.” The words dropped out of his mouth before he even realized he was saying it.

The whole room froze, everything so icy still that Barnes almost expected to see his breath puff out in a white fog.

Steve gaped at Tony, but Barnes could see the moment that Steve saw it, the shape of the jaw, those dark, sparking eyes. “You’re a _Stark_ ,” Steve growled, low and menacing. “You’re not one of us at _all_.”

Tony’s lips thinned, and then he nodded shortly, just once. “Yes. And I’m still one of you, whether you like it or not.” He tapped on his chest, where the small arc reactor was housed.

“Did you come looking for your _property?_ ” Steve snarled. “Hoping to bring us back into the fold?”

“No, gorram it,” Tony said, voice slowly rising. “I’m an enhancile, too! You’ve seen it! I can’t go back either, not until the Inhuman Rights Act is passed!”

Steve scoffed in pure disdain. “It’s not going to pass. Nothing _ever_ passes in our favor. You should know that, _Stark_.”

“Maybe it will,” Barnes put in, slowly. “Now I’m off th’ field.”

“What?” Both Tony and Steve were looking at him in confusion.

“Kennedy. _Xavier_. Erskine. Those are all on my list, Stevie. They had a plan, a _specific_ plan. Project Insight,” Barnes said. “Anyone that was fightin’ for us.” He laughed, cold and bitter. More memories rolled in, bitter as wormwood. They filled his mouth with words, his heart with self-loathing. He could never, ever make up for what he’d done, and the frelling thing about it was, he had been murdering his own hope. Their only hope. “They were using _me_ to murder the only people who wanted to help people like us. They’ve been murdering their way through the council, idealists and idea men. Just enough to nudge the tide.”

Tony shook his head. “They have other assassins,” he said. “If it’s not you, it’ll be another one.”

“I was helping them.” Barnes couldn’t stand up anymore. His legs went out from under him and he ended up on the floor, nose pressed against cold steel. “ _I helped them_!”

“You didn’t have a choice!” Tony protested.

“But _you_ did, Stark,” Steve said. “I still want to know what your game is. You’ve been skulking around ever since I took you on, hiding and secretive, and I thought maybe you were just skittish, ‘cause your enhancement is so new. But all this time, you’ve been -- what? Reporting our whereabouts? To whom? The police? The government? Your own troops?”

“Are you even _listening_ to yourself right now, Rogers?” Tony demanded. “If the _Avenger_ gets caught, then I’m just as frelling humped as the rest of you! I’ve been _helping_ you! I’ve never given you a bad lead, have I? And if I was setting up some kind of sting, it would’ve been at one of those spots!”

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t have an agenda,” Steve said.

“What’n the frell is all the yelling about?” Clint said, pushing in with Bruce at his heels. “Can we not go a dozen ells in any direction without one of you idiots screaming about something? I’m trying to _drive_. Don’t make me stop the ship and come back there. Oh, wait, you already did!”

Steve’s jaw worked impressively. “Clint. Bruce. Want you to take Tony and put him in the brig.”

“What? Steve, that’s-- _why_?” Bruce pushed into the room, looking around slowly. “What happened?”

“Turns out Tony is a _Stark_ ,” Steve said. “One of the biggest supporters of the Inhuman Classification laws, one of the biggest _manufacturers_ of enhanciles. He can’t be trusted.”

“Gorram it,” Tony tried. “I’ve got a plan, here, to turn the Council in our favor! I just need to get to Knowhere!”

“Oh, you’re going nowhere, all right,” Steve said.

 


	12. Chapter 12

“Steve,” Barnes protested. “This… this ain’t right.”

Steve shook his head. “What’s not right is the way he was cozying up to you. Trying to get in your favor -- and why?”

“What?” Tony practically screeched.

“Get him out of here,” Steve ordered.

“Come on,” Clint said. “Let’s go.”

“We’ll try to talk him around,” Bruce added quietly, glancing between Barnes and Steve. “Just... do what he says, for right now.”

“This is _insane_ ,” Tony protested.

“No,” Clint said. “It’s mutiny, if we don’t. I ain’t… I ain’t prepared to do that, just yet. Not for you, _Stark_. The futurist. Yeah, I know all about you. Didn’t realize...” Clint shook his head, expression closed off.

Tony stared at Clint for a long moment, then shuddered all over, slumping, and let Clint and Bruce lead him away.

“Steve!” Barnes protested, watching as Tony was directed by prods to his shoulder. “He didn’t do anything. This is… this is all me. What I did. What I was. _What I am_.”

Steve didn’t respond until Tony and the others were out of sight. Then he turned to Bucky. “What they did to you, Bucky, wasn’t any of your fault.”

“Maybe not, but I did it,” Barnes said. Stared at his hands. It seemed strange that those hands had done so many terrible things. “What. What are you gonna do with Tony?”

Steve paused at that, and sighed, slumping. “I don’t know. I can’t prove he did anything to us. Might be best if I just put him off the ship, next port we come to.”

Barnes nodded. “A’ight. That’s fair.” He swayed, getting to his feet. “What a day, huh, pal?” He smacked Steve’s shoulder, and that felt right. That felt real. _Familiar_. “Lemme fall on my face a few hours, then we’ll figure ourselves out a plan?”

“Sure thing, Bucky,” Steve said. He smiled a little and clapped Barnes on the shoulder. “I’m not glad this happened, but I’m glad you’re coming back.”

“Little bit at a time, but it’s comin’ back to me,” Barnes said. “Might be a while, before… I ain’t been out of cryo so long without a mission, before.” It still hurt, the thoughts and memories tumbling into place. He glanced at Steve and wondered if there were any possible way he could explain it; they’d all be dead by now if Tony hadn’t said exactly the right thing. _You’re not a prisoner._ It had opened the way for Barnes to make different, better decisions. “He’s not a bad man, Steve. Jus’. You should know that.”

He didn’t bother to wait for Steve to answer him. Either the little punk would come around or he wouldn’t, and in either case, Barnes didn’t have very much time. Two hours of sleep, that was all he could manage, but if he didn’t get some, he was going to be of no use to anyone. Since Tony wasn’t in engineering, Barnes went straight to his couch and laid down, letting the blackness sweep him away.

***

There was no way of telling time in the brig -- what passed as it, having contained Barnes and now Tony, the room was windowless and dark. No chrono. The air circulation system had been on Tony’s to-fix list for a while, so even its occasional kick-in didn’t give him anything to measure.

He had to find a way to make Steve see sense. Tony was trying to undo his father’s mistakes, trying to _free_ enhanciles. But if he lost Maya again, the Inhuman Rights Act would fail and things would get infinitely more difficult.

Things were looking bleak. Obie had broken into Tony’s house, JARVIS was offline, Pepper and Rhodey were in danger of being discovered, and Tony was locked in a closet. At least it meant Barnes would get a real bunk somewhere. Maybe he’d get Tony’s bunk. Or Natasha’s bunk, if she claimed Tony’s.

Tony slumped against the wall and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Gorram stubborn captain. Yes, Tony had kept his name hidden, but so had most of the others! Maybe Barnes would talk Steve around, at least a little. Maybe Steve could be convinced to kick Tony off the ship at Knowhere. If Tony could find Maya, being without a ship wouldn’t be a problem, because _she_ had a ship. And if she’d moved on, well... Knowhere admitted no law; Tony shouldn’t have trouble finding another piratical berth.

But frell, it sucked to have come _so close_ and to be back at square one.

There was the faintest scratch on the hatch, metal against metal. A quick tap and then silence.

Tony sat up straight. “Hello?”

“You might want to move away from th’ hatch,” Barnes’ voice, a low growl, was muffled from the other side of the wall. There was a sizzle and the distinct odor of burning metal, and then the room was lit in the eerie glow of molten steel as Barnes lined the latch with a catalytic paste that melted a hole around the locking mechanism.

Light spilled in from the corridor. Barnes shoved his metal hand in through the hole, heedless of the still dripping alloy and pulled it open, quiet and cautious. “Hey.”

“Barnes?” Tony whispered. “What the frell are you doing?”

“You wanna wait for the next rescue, be my guest,” Barnes said. “Or we could jus’ go.”

Tony scrambled to his feet, even if he wasn’t sure this was real. “Go where?”

“Gulmira, first,” Barnes said. “Closest safe refuel station t’ our current location. Then Knowhere. I can’t mutiny on th’ _Avenger_ without killing half the crew, at least, which doesn’t strike me as efficient. What I can do is get your ass on a shuttle. You in?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, dazed. “I’m in. You, uh. Said ‘we’. You coming, too?”

“I shudder t’ think of the state of th’ poor universe if I set you loose on your own,” Barnes said, flashing him a wide smirk. “Yeah, I’m comin’. If you’ll have me.”

“No one I’d rather have at my side,” Tony said. “Steve’ll be pissed, though. I mean, more pissed than he already is.”

“That’s very like t’ be true,” Barnes said. “I suggest we bust ass first and worry about him later?” His fingers twitched like he was restraining himself from picking Tony up like a recalcitrant sack of grain and hauling him onto the shuttle.

“Need my portable and some datasticks,” Tony said, “or we won’t be able to buy any gas when we get to Gulmira.”

Barnes sighed, fished around in the bag over his shoulder. “I am not, actually, an idiot.” He shoved Tony’s portable at him. “Th’ rest of your stuff’s already stowed. Thought you might want shoes, leastways.”

“Huh. You’ve really put some thought into this,” Tony said. He slipped past Barnes into the cargo hold, and headed for the shuttle bay. “I’m impressed. I’m not sure _why_ you’re helping me, but I’m impressed.”

“Call it pennance, if you need a name,” Barnes told him. He checked his chrono -- or, actually, that was Steve’s chrono, which just struck Tony as funny. “Almost right on time. Strap in, we got… ninety seconds.”

Tony lifted an eyebrow but started strapping in with all haste. “Ninety seconds until what?”

“I put a worm in the ship’s system,” Barnes said. “Should be cracking the airlock for us without havin’ to access C&C. And… here we go.”

Barnes detached the landing clamps and brushed the thrusters just enough to push them out. For a moment, they hovered in the same black hole event that carried the _Avenger_ in its wake, and then, as a smaller, lighter vessel, they were flung away.

Tony had seen fancy piloting before, and while it was theoretically _possible_ to detach during an event surf, he'd never heard about anyone ever actually trying it before. Sane people did not frell around with black holes. Yet Barnes was doing it like it was a textbook exercise. The stars snapped and then blurred as they veered off, catching a tighter curve of the event. The whump of the drive echoed in his chest.

Tony couldn’t help but run the math in his head, but he couldn’t keep up with the navcomp or Barnes’ minute adjustments that kept them from being pulled into the black hole. Finally, they reached the moment of departure and the navcomp took over, calculating their trajectory down to the millionth of a degree. Tony held his breath.

The little shuttle slingshotted out of the reach of the black hole, leaving the _Avenger_ far behind. Tony watched the stars speeding by, the strange bluish afterimage of light reaching his eyes long after they’d passed their actual position. “Well,” he said. “We didn’t die.”

Barnes grinned. “Stevie would never believe I’d b’ so foolish as to attempt a detach like that. He didn’t try very hard t’ keep me aboard, so that’s all on his own head.” He plotted a quick course, set the ship’s alarm to ping him when they were two hours from the drop to regular space.

“It’s gonna take a few days,” Barnes said, like he was apologizing. “Gotta conserve the core in a small ship like this. It’s not meant for this kind of travel, but I can make do. Might be able to acquire something better at Gulmira.”

“Or I might be able to rig up a boost for the onboard engine once I can get my hands in there,” Tony pointed out. “I, uh. Engines are sort of my thing.”

“A’ight,” Barnes said. “Look, I don’t know about you, but I only jus’ got out from Steve’s watch by claimin’ exhaustion and then humping my ass all over the gorram ship. I wasn’t lyin’. I’m whipped.” He pushed back from the console and headed into the back. Tony’s things were shoved in magnetic crates, stuck to the walls.

Barnes yawned heroically, stretching until his fingertips were brushing the low ceiling of the shuttle and his shirt had rucked out of his denims, showing off a strip of that bronze skin.

Tony dragged his eyes away. “You go ahead and take the bunk, then,” he said. “I’ll just stay over here in the co’s chair.”

Barnes glanced at him. “You can’t sleep in a piloting chair,” he said.

“I can sleep just about anywhere,” Tony assured him. He’d wake up with a crick in his neck, but that wasn’t anything new.

“No, I mean that, literally,” Barnes said. “You _can’t_ sleep in a piloting chair. No one can. It’s a safety mechanism. The chair’ll wake you up. Vibrations first, but if you ignore it, it’ll start shockin’ you.”

“Well, that’s just rude,” Tony said. “It’s fine, we can sleep in shifts or something. I’m a champion at staying awake for days.” Of course, that was with a project to distract him. As soon as he’d said it, he started feeling sleepy.

“Uh-huh,” Barnes said. He glanced at Tony as if considering something drastic, then shrugged. “Right.” He took two steps toward Tony and picked him up, bending him over Barnes’ shoulder like a fireman’s carry. While Tony was trying to get his bearings (and not struggle too much, because there were a lot of hard corners in a shuttle interior) Barnes tossed him lightly onto the single bunk’s mattress and then climbed in after him. He wrapped the left arm around Tony’s waist, which weighed him down in the middle and made it nearly impossible to get out without putting a lot of effort into it.

“Stop squirmin’,” Barnes told him, tugging the blanket over them.

“I was trying to be polite,” Tony pointed out. It was a pretty comfortable bunk for a shuttle, actually.

“I ain’t,” Barnes said. He snuggled in, spooning Tony from behind and sticking his nose in Tony’s hair. “Go t’ sleep.” He sounded like he was already halfway there, voice slurred and thick with exhaustion.

Tony considered the situation for a moment, then inwardly shrugged and abandoned himself to sleep as well.

***

At some point in the deep shift, he’d woken in a panic, sweaty and feverish. Barnes had checked the shuttle, found everything safe. Had placed a knife and a stunner within easy reach. There was nothing in space that could harm them that would be fended off by a sharp blade, but Barnes had been uneasy, haunted by nightmares that he couldn’t remember. He’d peeled out of his sweat drenched shirt and trousers and climbed back into bed.

Tony had slept through the entire thing, curled against the wall like a kitten, boneless and relaxed.

Swimming through the river of his dreams, Barnes awoke to the faintest chirp from the nav-systems. A broadwave or weather report, nothing important.

He was warm, comfortable.

A quiver of anticipation was slowly building in his belly, warming him.

It took a moment to realize why. Tony had rolled over in the night; he was draped over Barnes’ body, one leg thrown carelessly over his thighs. His hand stretched out, fingers starfished over Barnes’ stomach and Tony’s head was tucked against Barnes’ chest, warm breath wafting over Barnes’ nipple with each exhale.

The artificial arm hung loose at Barnes’ side, but his right arm was under Tony’s body, and when Barnes flexed his fingers, he realized his palm was firmly against Tony’s ass. The flexing seemed to signal to a sleep-warm, dreaming Tony to squirm even closer.

As if there was any space between them at all that wasn’t filled with heat.

Tony was like a little koala, all clinging, grabby hands and soft nuzzles and sleep-soaked sighs. Barnes wanted to roll him over and kiss him awake, wanted to touch and tease until Tony was warm and pliant under him.

Wanted to never move again, in case he should wake Tony up and see that creeping caution back in those brown eyes.

Also didn’t want to wake Tony and draw attention to the fact that Barnes was sporting an enormous erection. Not that it was unusual in the morning, curled against a warm body, but _still_ , it would be embarrassing. And it wasn’t like he could hide it. Having stripped down to nothing but light shorts, it was pretty gorram obvious, tenting out the soft fabric.

Sometime in the last two days, Barnes had learned how to feel self-conscious again. He wasn’t sure he liked that, either.

Tony shifted, murmured something dream-fuddled and affectionate. His lips brushed against Barnes’ chest as he mumbled.

And his hand moved.

Barnes couldn’t breathe.

His heart hammered in his chest like a magrail.

Tony’s hand was on him; heel and palm resting against the length of him, fingers curling just against his balls.

Barnes hadn’t thought it was possible to get harder, but he could feel it, until it felt like he could drill for diamonds.

_Frell me dead._

Barnes made a soft, whimpering noise, just the barest leak of air out of his throat.

Tony opened his eyes.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Tony floated in the darkness, warm and secure and _safe_ in a way he hadn’t felt for too frelling long. There was a body wrapped around his, comforting and welcome, and Tony was too asleep to remember who it was, but he knew it was someone important, someone who would protect him.

Someone he wanted, and here they were, warm skin against Tony’s, and in a hazy, dreamy way, he knew they wanted him, too. An arm was curled around him, keeping him close, cupping his ass. That was... nice, that was very nice, and Tony felt heat stirring low in his belly. It took a lot of effort, through the barrier of mostly-sleeping, to move his hand, to feel the smooth skin and firm muscle and-- Oh, very nice indeed. An erection pulsed under his hand and he let his fingers curl around it. It was almost hot to the touch, right on the verge of too thick, and Tony’s mouth watered just thinking about it.

How long had it been, since he’d been able to wake up like this, with a sleepy, lazy roll before--

A soft whine, almost a whimper, slid through his ears, and he woke up a little more. This wasn’t his bed at home in the Stark Industries compound. This wasn’t even his bunk on the _Avenger_. This was... Tony opened his eyes.

Barnes was staring at him, eyes wide and verging on panic.

Memory crashed in -- the fight with Steve, Barnes’ rescue, the _shuttle_ , and its single narrow bunk.

And Tony was curled against Barnes’ side, and Tony’s hand was _still wrapped around Barnes’ dick_.

“Oh frell!” He pulled his hand back like Barnes had burned him, scrambling back against the wall as far as the narrow bed would allow. “Sorry, I’m so, so sorry, dren!” He was holding up his hand like someone had a blaster pointed at him now.

Barnes flinched back in the opposite direction, which did not have a wall. He vanished off the side of the bunk with a thud and a muffled curse. “Ow.” For an instant, one well-muscled and impressive leg remained on the bed before it, too, swept off, taking all the remaining blankets with it.

“Sorry,” Tony said again. “In my defense, I tried to sleep in the chair.”

“Telling me ‘I told you so’ while I’m th’ one with the bruised ass is not an endearing quality,” Barnes muttered. With a couple of exceptionally filthy swears, he hauled himself upright, the bundle of blankets wrapped around his waist doing nothing at all to hide his stiffie. Barnes was blushing furiously, his cheeks and throat red and his chest was breaking out into rosy splotches, but he refused to allow it to intimidate him. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay,” said Tony after a moment. “Okay, I’m... Yeah, you’re right. We’ll laugh about it later. Or maybe never speak of it again. That’s a good option, let’s go with that one. I’m just going to, uh.” He pointed toward the cramped bathroom. Tony slid off the bed at the end as far from Barnes as he could manage, and scurried into the bathroom.

It was a relief to shut the door despite the claustrophobic space. He leaned his head against the cool metal and breathed out a sigh. _Great job, Stark, alienating your only ally_.

Not that Barnes had seemed particularly enraged. More like embarrassed and maybe a bit confused. And also extremely horny. Maybe Tony should have ceded him the bathroom instead.

Too late now. Tony wasn’t sure how long they’d slept, but it felt like hours had passed. But even if they’d slept long and well, they still had more than a day’s travel before they made it to Gulmira. Tony looked around the bathroom, but it was too tiny for him to just hide in here for the whole trip. Also, Barnes would probably need to use it at some point.

Frelling dren. Okay. Pretending nothing had happened. That was a thing Tony could do, he’d done that before. It would be awkward and then they’d get to Gulmira and maybe Tony could hire someone else to take him to Knowhere, if things were too bad. Just a little over a day. He could do that, right? Right.

Tony took his time about his business, giving them both as much space as possible to deal with their particular situations and to practice being calm and collected. And when he opened the door again, he was absolutely _not_ thinking about how perfectly Barnes’ dick had fit in his hand. Not at all.

Barnes wasn’t even entirely sure he knew who he _was_ ; he did _not_ need Tony’s amorous attentions. Or anyone else’s, _Loki_.

“Your turn,” Tony said, managing to sound cool about it.

Barnes nodded. He’d scrambled into his clothes -- and when exactly had he taken them off? -- while Tony was pretending to use the facilities. He didn’t meet Tony’s gaze at all, didn’t say anything. Probably still embarrassed, but really, he’d been right. It was nothing to worry about. Normal biological reaction.

Tony was probably imagining the way Barnes looked like a kicked puppy. Disappointed and ashamed and--

The hatch to the bathroom closed and latched. A moment later, the sonics hummed to life, blocking just about any sound that might come from the small room.

Tony was definitely not thinking about Barnes taking care of his normal biological reaction. He was going to strap into the co-pilot’s chair and make sure no alerts had come up while they’d been napping.

***

Sonic showers were miserable inventions, but necessary. Ships were, by nature, as small as possible. Moving more mass meant more fuel, meant bigger engines. It was a self-defeating equation sometimes; the swiftest modes of transport were cramped sleep-capsules. Even on larger vessels, water was a premium, necessary for survival, but not for hygiene.

Sonic showers had done a lot to ease health concerns caused by long periods without adequate bathing.

They were still utterly, utterly miserable.

Barnes inserted the earplugs and stepped, miserable, naked, and shivering, into the sound chamber where high speed sound and light waves would vibrate dead skin and germs off his body before being blasted by heated air to brush away the film of dust that formed from the sonic bombardment.

Barnes knew he was pretty much sterilized, as clean as he could possibly be once he stepped out of the chamber, but he never felt clean after a sonic shower. He felt… dusty and uncomfortable and he always spent needless amounts of time brushing through his hair to make sure all the dead skin cells were gone.

He told himself he was not utterly avoiding Tony or the look of revulsion that had crossed Tony’s face when he realized where his hand had been.

Told himself he was absolutely not thinking about how it had felt, just before that moment, how he’d been desired, wanted, _welcomed_.

It was a jumble and a mess.

Barnes didn’t even know what planet Tony was from. Some cultures were very strict about sexual taboos, requiring marriage or loss of reputation from something as simple as sharing a bed, while others had reduced the biological impulses to something as casual as getting a snack from the corner shop.

Ship-bound had even more customs, a melting-pot of ideas and ideals that meshed for each individual crew. Tony was in space now, but he was oddly innocent of some space-travelling knowledge that Barnes considered basic, so he could not have been there long.

Barnes tugged his clothes on, smoothed his hair down one more time, as the sonic shower gave it a tendency to stand on end with stray static charges.

He would make the offer, at least, if Tony needed it. It was his fault, after all, he’d been the one to practically force Tony onto the bunk, held him down without concern for the man’s feelings. Barnes flinched away from his reflection in the polished, gimballed mirror. Blast glass, impervious to gravity, space flow. A tiny luxury, really. Most ships just had screens, a camera to record and push back.

There were too many things Barnes didn’t know about Tony, or Tony’s mission, or the crew of the _Avengers_.

He probably needed to open his mouth and ask, as uncomfortable as that made him. So he didn’t make any more mistakes.

Didn’t push Tony into any more mistakes.

_Frell me dead._

***

Barnes threw himself down into the pilot’s chair with a sigh. “I apologize,” he said, not looking at Tony. “I wasn’t thinking, last shift. If I… compromised your honor, I’ll do what I can to make it up.”

“My-- my _honor?_ ” Tony actually went blank at the thought for a moment. “Oh, frell, no. I’m not... dishonored or offended or anything like that.” Tony wasn’t even sure if he had any honor left to lose. “You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m not usually so grabby in my sleep. At least I don’t think so. It’s just been a while, I guess.”

He grimaced. He needed to shut up before he made things even worse.

“All right,” Barnes said, mildly. “S’long as I didn’t… Sorry.” He was blushing again, and it was so, so wrong of Tony to notice it. He ran one hand through his hair, sparks of leftover static dancing along metal fingers. “What’s th’ plan? If you… trust me enough t’ tell me?”

Tony shook himself away from watching the fall of Barnes’ hair. “As far as I know, the plan hasn’t changed,” he said. “Gulmira and then Knowhere. If you’d rather not come, I understand, I mean...” He took a breath, blew it out. “I get the feeling Steve would come and pick you up, if you wanted him to.”

“What’s at Knowhere that’s so important?” Barnes ignored the reminder about Steve, flicked a glance at Tony from the corner of his eye.

Tony considered it, worrying his lip with his teeth. “A... person who worked for me, at SI. I hope. She stole some enhancile prototypes -- sort of; it’s complicated -- and destroyed all the research. Because, as it turned out, my partner was planning to use it to line his own pocket. It’s enhancement that’s undetectable by current methods. So he could sell it to the very wealthy -- Council members, whoever -- for them to build their own private armies right under everyone’s noses.

“I’d rather see it released to the general public. Let everyone have it. It could do a lot of good. And because it’s so hard to detect, the Council would have no choice but to pass the Inhuman Rights Act. Especially if some of _them_ were enhanced with it.

“But the woman with it... she’s running scared. Doesn’t know who to trust. I have to find her before Obie does. He’ll just put her in a cage and bleed the formulas out of her again.”

Barnes nodded a few times. “All right,” Barnes said. “I’ll get you to Knowhere. Knowhere’s a good place t’ start over. Huge, chaotic, dangerous. Outside the Council’s jurisdiction -- they could take it, if they really wanted it, but the Core planets are a pressure cooker. If there’s no vent release…” Barnes made a spreading gesture with one hand. “So, they don’t push. But they’ve got eyes and ears there too, make no mistake. We’ll need to be careful. It’s not just outlaws that make their home there. I’ll help you find your friend, and then, maybe it’s best we go our separate ways.”

It was surprising how much that hurt, but it wasn’t a surprise that he’d said it. Tony nodded. “Yes, that’s... that’s fair. Thank you.”

There was a long silence as Barnes studied the shuttle’s readouts and systems reports, then, he glanced over at Tony again. “What’s your training?”

“Like... where I went to school?” Tony blinked at Barnes. Was he trying to make small talk? They’d done better than this during the trip to Asgard, when Barnes had still been mostly a brain-zotted zombie.

“Weapons, self-defense,” Barnes said. “You’re an enhancile, what -- what’s your strength rating?” Tony continued to stare at him, not having answers for those types of questions. “Are you telling me you’ve got _no training_?”

Tony finally sighed, slumping as much as the co-pilot’s chair would allow. “I’m not supposed to be an enhancile,” he said. “I’m supposed to be dead. The rogues who kidnapped me were supposed to kill me, except they thought they could double-cross Obie and hold me for ransom instead. I got caught in the crossfire, took a stun blaster at full charge right to the heart. It screwed up the way my heart works, made it so it can’t detect the signals from my body.” Tony tapped on the arc reactor. “I made this, because what the pirates’ doc did to me was...” Tony sighed. “It keeps my heart beating. I might be a little stronger than normal, but not much. Stamina’s pretty good, considering. And I heal fast, but not like a serumed enhancile. Just... on the fast side of normal.” He glanced up at Barnes, who was staring at him with an unreadable expression. “Didn’t find out until I managed to escape the pirates that it qualifies as enough of an upgrade to register on the Inhuman detection scans. Been on the run ever since.”

“You… made that?” Barnes reached out, as if he was going to touch the center of Tony’s chest, and then stopped short. “What’d… how’s that work, you’re what, the wholly owned subsidiary of _your own company_? Who’s considered your sponsor?”

“Well, Obie’s the second-in-command of the company,” Tony said, using a light tone completely at odds to how he felt. “So probably him. Which is bad news for me, since he’s the one who tried to have me killed in the first place. I just can’t prove it. And since I’m his property, legally, I couldn’t do anything about it even if I _could_ prove it. I’d have to step very fast to get a judge to agree that, since he tried to kill me _before_ I was enhanced, he even committed a crime.”

“We’re not things,” Barnes said, that jaw jutting out stubbornly. “We shouldn’t be owned. I’ll help you, however I can. An’ what I can do now is teach you. You need t’ be able to defend yourself. Yeah?”

Tony mostly did okay with his stunner and occasionally a blaster, but they were headed for Knowhere. It only made sense to learn as much defense as he could before they go there. And what else were they going to do with the next day and change? “Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, let’s do this.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

Barnes padded the small cargo bay as well as he could, cushioning the hard surface so that he wouldn’t break bones. He’d heal in a few days, Tony in a few weeks. Time neither of them had. So, safety was his first priority. He didn’t have much time to lay groundwork either.

“I’m gonna teach you fast, dirty. There’s no time to hesitate, no time to negotiate. There’s no room for pity. If someone puts a violent hand on you again, you need to take them out. The top priority, survive. Kill them. If you can’t kill them, disable. If you can’t disable, disarm. Run. Hide. I’ll teach you some stealth, too.

“First lesson: humans, base-level humans, are very fragile creatures,” Barnes said. “It doesn’t take much. And anyone who hasn’t been trained--” He snapped out, in total control, but Tony wouldn’t know that, moving his hand as fast as he could toward Tony’s face, stopping just before he struck.

Tony jerked back away from the blow, eyes widening, hands raising belatedly. “The frell?!”

“Humans protect their faces,” Barnes said. “ _Use it_. In the three seconds it took you to recover your balance, I could be twenty meters away.” He grabbed Tony’s arm, pulled it up so the forearm was level to the ground. “This is one of the strongest parts of your body. Use it to block. Wear arm guards if you can. Try to sweep under the blow.” He demonstrated, slow motion. “Go on, hit me.”

Tony set his mouth in a grim line, then focused on Barnes’ arms, and threw a punch.

Barnes knocked Tony’s forearm aside and an instant later, his metal fingers were touching Tony’s throat. “Another weak point. It’s harder to crush than you might think, but a strong blow -- use your hand like a blade -- will make someone cough and splutter. And it’s frightening, to most people. Not being able to breathe. They’ll panic. Panic is your friend. Incite it whenever possible. Frightened people flee or freeze.”

He moved around behind Tony. “Stand, like this,” he said. “Punch. Block.” He let his fingers run down Tony’s arms, directing the motion. “Jab out, then sweep in front of you, counter the moves your enemy makes. Aim for the eyes. The throat. Don’t hesitate.”

Tony let Barnes move him, then tried the motions on his own. He wasn’t bad, only a little wobbly. And the faint frown between his eyebrows said he knew how important this was. He tried again. And then again. “Okay. Okay, I can do this.”

“Right,” Barnes said. “Okay, try again. Hit me.” He took up position in front of Tony again. Not that enemies would line up, face to face, but fighting was like math. Tony had to learn to add single digit numbers before long division was going to make sense. Barnes couldn’t help a small smile at that; Tony might like that metaphor, actually.

Tony hesitated a moment, eyes flicking, then threw the jab, straight at Barnes’ throat, and swept aside the molasses-slow counter-punch Barnes returned with. He stepped back and grinned. “Okay, yeah.”

“Good,” Barnes said. He remembered, a soft, sinking memory, doing this before. Teaching. A girl, fierce and fiery as her hair. “Now, both your hands are occupied. What do you do?”

“Kick,” Tony said. “Yeah?” He held up his hands as if awkwardly warding off an attack, then flung out his foot. It was clumsy, but not entirely poorly placed. “Groin or knee.”

“Also, forehead. Yours is hard,” Barnes said, feeling his mouth turn up as Tony started to protest. “Well, you specifically are hard-headed, but that’s general advice, too. Headbutt. Use this part--” He touched a line over Tony’s eyebrows, ignoring the urge to cup the man’s face. When he pulled his hand away, his fingertips were tingling “--and aim here. Breaking someone’s nose is extremely painful, makes the eyes water, too.”

The afternoon went on, with Barnes building as much in as he could. Tony’s memory was better than his balance. It didn’t take him long to pick up a few simple countermoves. He was slower than Barnes, but enhanciles without a sponsor were rare. It was unlikely Tony would run into another soldier, unless someone was specifically looking for him. Against another baseline? Tony’s blows had more force. He was just a little faster.

“All right,” Barnes said, at least an hour later. “Let’s put it all together. See if you can tag me.”

Tony scoffed. “As if.” He put his hands up, though, game to try. They circled a little, and Tony began trying to put the pieces together. His balance was still off, but Barnes could almost see him extrapolating the next steps, the way the moves worked together, the secondary strike zones.

Barnes kept his blows light, just enough to sting when he made contact, avoiding bruises or any disabling shots. Tony wouldn’t learn if Barnes just beat him down. “Come on,” he encouraged. “I’m trying to hurt you, here.” He reached out and twisted one of Tony’s buttons, snapping the threads that held it to the material. It hit the wall with a soft _plink_. He’d been trained that way, once. His instructor’s weapon of choice had been a frelling marking pen, each black slash on Barnes’s white student’s shirt a badge of shame.

“Gorram it, I don’t even know if there’s a repair kit on this shuttle,” Tony complained. He set his jaw and charged forward, not with the simple jabs and harder-to-block straight shots that Barnes had been teaching him, but with a feint and a hook that actually caught Barnes by surprise.

Barnes was fast enough to step out of its path, but it still managed to catch him on the tip of the chin.

Instinct took over, probably because Barnes had been too busy contemplating the flash of skin his tagging maneuver had caused, and he hadn’t been giving the fight his full attention. He let the momentum of the blow push him over, hit the ground and twisted, leg going out to sweep Tony’s feet out from under him.

_A downed enemy is vulnerable._

To give Tony full credit, the man rolled over, pushed his arms under himself and attempted to rise. Barnes grabbed him around the waist, twisted again, and ended up on top of Tony, straddling his hips, both hands pinned over his head.

For just an instant, Barnes forgot why he was fighting, the quick flicker taking in leverage points, pain centers, nerve clusters. And then he shifted, just a little. Just enough for his brain to absorb the position they were in and all the other points. Nerve clusters. Pleasure centers. Leverage points. His mouth watered, and Barnes sucked in a breath.

Tony’s eyes were dazed and then sharply focused, wide and dark. “Oh,” he breathed after an endless moment. “Well, that was... instructive.”

Barnes rolled back onto his heels and stood up. “I might have overreacted,” he said, offering Tony a hand. “Try not to end up on your back in front of an enemy. It’s a very vulnerable position.” And then he felt his neck heating, because yes, he’d just proven that, and the sort of _vulnerable_ and _on his back_ and… Barnes shook his head, trying to throw all those thoughts away. “Are you all right?”

“Little winded, but I’m fine,” Tony said, waving off Barnes’ concern. He pushed up to sitting, and then held out a hand, prompting Barnes to help pull him to his feet. “So did you let me tag you, or were you so distracted by how bad I was that I actually got in a lucky shot?” He rocked one shoulder back and forth, working the muscles.

“I did not allow you anything,” Barnes said. “That I was distracted is on my own head. You should never hesitate to take advantage of this.”

Maybe Tony would be okay on his own. If he did find this other enhancile, he would have someone else to protect him. Nothing really that Barnes could teach him in two days was going to do much beyond prepare him for the possibility of hitting someone else.

And that first punch, the first kill. Those were always the hardest. To throw away every bit of civilization that humans were trained to from birth and _hurt_ someone. Too many men died because they couldn't reach past it.

“Yeah, I got it. Take advantage of every weakness,” Tony said. He leaned against the bulkhead. “Sounds like a lonely way to live, though.”

“Sometimes,” Barnes admitted. “Beats the alternative. I… don't want to think of anything happening to you. Permanently, you know.”

Tony looked at him curiously, then seemed to shake it off. “I’m not too keen on the idea, myself. I’m hoping for a quick and easy trip in and out of Knowhere. And you can go on about... whatever it is you want to do.”

What the frell did Barnes know about being lonely? He'd barely known other people were _real_ beyond targets and handlers. And yet the thought of Tony laying somewhere, lifeless and cold, made Barnes’ chest ache with fear. Made him want to throw away any plans of getting out of Tony’s way and protect him.

“I ain't playin’,” he said. He grabbed Tony's shoulder and turned him, cupping one cheek. “One of the best things in the universe is right here. Don't waste it.”

Tony met Barnes’ gaze, his eyes wide and startled and vulnerable, just for a moment. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I won’t,” he said, finally. “I’m trying to do something good. To fix the mistakes that were made. I... I’m doing my best.”

“I know you are,” Barnes told him. “Let's eat. You need to keep your strength up.” _And I need to keep my hands off you for a while before I do something stupid._

***

The food Barnes had packed wasn’t exciting -- ratpacks and water -- though at least the shuttle had a tiny prep kitchen so they could fully reconstitute and heat the packs. When they’d finished, though, Barnes brought out something else, a smallish square wrapped in silvery plastic: Tony’s hoarded chocolate from the Hydra haul. He’d taken it from his pocket and put it on a workbench and then forgotten about it.

“Really?” Tony laughed. “Running for it, and you packed us dessert?”

“I didn't want Clint to have it,” Barnes said, mouth twisting into something Tony wanted very badly to call a pout.

Tony chuckled again and broke the bar in two, offering half to Barnes. “No, you did good. Spirit lifting, and everything.” He nibbled at the corner of his own piece, unable to stop watching Barnes.

Barnes ate the chocolate with a combination of greedy eagerness and an attempt at restraint that failed miserably. He would break off a square and shove it in his mouth like he was scared someone was going to take it away and tucked the rest in his pouch. And not two minutes later, Tony would catch him snitching another square.

Tony couldn’t decide if it was adorable or heartbreaking, and _that_. _That right there_ , those kind of thoughts needed to _stop_. Barnes was going to _leave_ as soon as they got to Knowhere. And their awkward awakening had proved that Barnes wasn’t ready for any kind of physical intimacy. Not with Tony, anyway.

Tony turned away so he couldn’t keep watching Barnes. He crawled behind the co-pilot’s chair instead. Bucky definitely wouldn’t want to share a bunk with Tony again, and Tony was too tired from his lessons in self-defense to sleep in shifts. He ought to be able to disable the keep-awake mechanisms in the chair.

There wasn’t an easy off switch, of course. It would be tied into the biofeedback system, so the chair could detect the slowing heartbeat of early sleep. He unscrewed the panel on the back of the chair and dove into its guts.

A chair really shouldn’t have this many moving parts, Tony thought, poking through the wiring and joints. Sure, it conformed perfectly to its user’s body shape and maintained exactly the right level of comfort -- a boon for pilots who were confined to the chair for many long hours, maybe even full days. But it made identifying and separating the safety features a problem. Worse, the shock wasn’t generated in its own unit, but pulled directly from the ship’s own current, so Tony couldn’t just disable that.

It didn’t help that Tony’s arms and shoulders were aching and exhausted from the sparring lessons. He had to keep pulling them free and swinging them around to loosen the muscles. Eventually, Barnes wandered over to check the autopilot and recalibrate for their next drop through a gravity well. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Fixing the chair so I can sleep in it,” Tony said. Aha, _that_ wire! Tony reached in to unfasten it and ground it in the flame-retardant, nonconductive foam at the bottom of the chair. “There, that should do it.” He sat up, rubbing at his sore shoulder. “At least, I think that’ll do it. I guess we’ll find out when it’s bedtime.”

“Hey, Tony,” Barnes said, bit at his lower lip as if he didn’t mean to say anything, then shrugged. “You’re still all tense.” He poked at one of Tony’s shoulders, as if to underscore his point.

Tony winced away from the poke. “Yeah, I guess those muscles aren’t really used to that much of a workout.”

“I…” And there went that blush again, spreading across Barnes’ cheeks like paint. “I can help with that. If you want.”

Tony blinked. What kind of help warranted that blush? “Help, how?” he asked.

“Uh. Loki did it for me. It really helped, loosened everything up, and just. Felt really good. It could help, if you wanted.”

Tony nearly swallowed his own tongue. “I’m sorry?” he managed. “I thought, I mean, you didn’t seem too... I thought it was pretty clear that we _weren’t_ going to do that.”

“It’s fine,” Barnes said, his voice low pitched, tentative, almost coaxing. “It’ll help. Take your clothes off and go lay down on the bed. I think I saw some oil in the med-kit.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

Tony stared at Barnes for a long minute. He’d known Loki didn’t believe in romance, but he’d have thought Barnes would have picked up at least a little bit of finesse from the courtesan’s approach. “Just like that?”

“The shuttle’s not--” Barnes flushed again. “He gave me a bath first, and… there were candles and stuff. I don’t really have that, here.”

“And you really want to do this?” Tony pressed. “With me?”

Barnes looked down at his hands as if considering the metal fingers. “I ain’t… had formal trainin’ or anything. I won’t hurt you, though. Fast learner.”

“I just...” Dren, that blush was almost hypnotic. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not... comfortable with.”

“The next few days, at least, are gonna be a trial,” Barnes said. “I jus’... want you to feel good. I ain’t uncomfortable with you.”

“I... okay,” Tony said. If Barnes was in control, then Tony couldn’t do anything he didn’t want, right?

Tony stripped down to his underwear while Barnes was poking around in the med-kit. It didn’t seem quite right to jump _straight_ to completely naked, so Tony left those on, and laid back on the bunk.

“Aha!” Barnes said. “Ug, it’s cold. _Everything_ on this shuttle is cold. Space. I hate it.” He peeled off his own shirt, and then tucked the bottle into his armpit to warm it. Sat down on the side of the bed and took his shoes and socks off.

Turned to Tony to say something and then stopped, staring. “Frell, that’s _gorgeous_.” His eyes were fixed on the pale, glowing light emanating from Tony’s arc-reactor. He stretched out one finger and absently circled it around the edges of the casing. “Does… does it hurt? I mean, obviously, it did when someone put it in there, but I mean, now? Does that… hurt you?”

Tony determinedly did not think about the ordeal of having it installed. “No,” he said carefully. “It aches, sometimes, around the edges, but it doesn’t really hurt.” He didn’t mention the shaking arrhythmia that happened when it synced with a ship’s reactor. There wasn’t anything that could be done about it, and anyway, they weren’t going to fire up the BEHS again immediately.

“It’s th’ most beautiful thing I ever saw,” Barnes said, reverently, fingers still moving, around the casing, over the polymer surface. “It’s so _warm_.” He was staring at Tony like Tony was some sort of miracle instead of an experimental medical procedure gone wrong. “I’ll, uh, be careful not to hurt it.”

It was hard not to reach up and cover the casing, protecting it from that gentle touch and those wondering eyes. Tony drew a shaking breath. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll let you know if it starts to be a problem.” He hadn’t done this since the arc reactor had been installed, actually. He had no idea how it would be affected.

“Here, I’ve got you,” Barnes told him, and then gently, like he wasn’t sure he had the right, he started stroking through Tony’s hair, encouraging him to tilt his head back, fingers rubbing and scritching gently against his scalp and down to the back of his neck where he pulled a little, rubbing tension away.

Tony let himself relax into it, let himself enjoy the touch, the feel of Barnes’ fingers against his neck and scalp. It was soothing and exciting, both at once. Barnes was still blushing, just a little, but he was smiling, too. That was good, right? Tony watched Barnes’ face for a moment, and then let those slow, careful strokes pull his eyes closed. Maybe that would help, too.

Barnes continued down Tony’s neck, then around to his collarbones, fingers slow and smooth. He explored every inch of Tony’s skin, running his hands down Tony’s arms, squeezing at his wrists lightly. Pushed him back into the bed. “Just let me,” he said, when Tony tried to reach for him. “You don’t have to do anything at all, except relax.” His hands wandered, methodically, almost impersonally, as if mapping out Tony’s body. Another squeeze at his ankles, and then pushed that smooth metal thumb into the arch of Tony’s foot, soothing away aches and pains.

Tony let out a low groan of pleasure at that, even if it wasn’t quite the pleasure he’d been expecting. He gave himself up to it, let the tension melt away, his skin tingling with the rush of blood underneath. “That feels great,” he mumbled. Barnes wanted him to lie still, so he would, but he could at least be encouraging.

“Touch-starved,” Barnes agreed. “Loki said. We get so used to it, in crowded ships, in space, not touching, giving everyone their privacy. But humans, even altered ones, they’re meant to touch each other. We’re not meant t’ wall ourselves off th’ way we do. This --” he ran a hand up Tony’s leg, fingertips tickling his inner thigh “--this is good for us.”

Tony could have done without the reminder of Loki, but he had to admit the touch felt wonderful, even as careful and impersonal as it was. Maybe that was the reason they’d woken up wrapped close together. That, and the narrow width of the bed.

Barnes moved a little and then, very gently, nudged Tony into rolling over. “Here we go. Look at you, all relaxed.”

There was a _snick_ as Barnes popped the top of the oil bottle.

Wait. Tony still had his underwear on...?

Barnes poured a thin drizzle of warmed oil down Tony’s spine. “Shhhh,” Barnes told him. He spread the oil around on Tony’s skin with one hand, then started working it in, thumbs pushing at the tense muscles, fingers soothing the skin after. “Good, yeah?”

“Sure,” Tony said, thoroughly confused. “Did you...” He paused as Barnes worked over a particularly stubborn knot. “Oh, frell, that’s perfect,” he sighed.

“Lay still,” Barnes told him, then pushed at the base of his spine, steady, heavy pressure and as Tony breathed out, Barnes gave a sharp little shove that had every vertebra in Tony’s back shivering and then, like a ripcord pulled on a chute, his spine crackled, popped and snapped. It sounded _horrifying_ and for a few seconds Tony couldn’t breathe from fear and the surge of not-quite-pain. Had Barnes broken his frelling back?

Endorphins rushed in, making him light headed with relief, and then-- oh, oh, stars, that… everything loosened up in a huge wave. He could have wept from the pain he suddenly _wasn’t in_.

“Oh, _dren_ ,” he groaned. “That’s... _amazing_. That’s _better_ than sex.”

For just in instant Barnes rested his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t know,” he said. “I ain’t done… _that_. In ages. Back… back in ‘44, galactic? I think? But yeah, feels amazing, don’t it? I swear, I thought m’ head was gonna pop right off.” He pushed up and continued rubbing Tony’s back, kneading out the muscles in his shoulders and neck and upper arms. Sometimes it hurt, those deep strokes, but it was a _good_ sort of hurt.

“Wait, wait wait wait,” Tony said, twisting around to peer at Barnes over his shoulder. “This is _all_ you and Loki did?”

Barnes shrugged one shoulder. “We talked. Took a bath together. He washed my hair. Taught me a little, how to dig into those memories that were all covered up by Hydra. Ate. Slept.”

“Huh.” Well, now Tony felt ridiculous for being so upset about Loki’s interference. _Well played, Loki_. Yet another point for Loki in their ongoing petty feud. Not that Tony expected to be back on Asgard again soon. Or ever, if he couldn’t catch up with Maya. “So when you said you were going to help me out... this is what you meant.”

“Yeah, I--” Barnes paused for a long moment. “Am I doin’ it wrong? You’re gettin’ all tense again.”

“No!” Tony dropped back flat onto the bed. “No, you’re doing perfect. Definitely a fast learner. I was just. Um. Confused. But now I’m good, we’re all good here. Right? Right.” He tried to make himself relax again, but it was hard, even with Barnes’ thumbs dragging down either side of his spine.

“We’re good,” Barnes repeated. “You’re good. It’s all right, jus’ relax. Deep breaths. It’s all right.” Barnes continued to talk, low and soothing, practically purring, which seemed odd, given that Tony was the one being stroked and coddled. He continued to work the knots out of Tony’s muscles, back and arms and upper legs, scooting down as needed. If Tony hadn’t been quite so aware of Barnes, he might not have noticed that Barnes spent a little longer on his legs than other places, but it also felt so frelling good, Tony didn’t really want to point it out.

Barnes talked, rambled on, bringing up a few of his old memories, about his childhood back on Brooklyn, a little about some of the ops that the enhanced unit he belonged to had fought in, before he’d been captured. A failed Hydra mission where he’d spent weeks trying to track down an elusive target, only to eventually discover the man had a whole fleet of high end LMDs and that they’d lost him completely.

His voice was soothing, the stories light-hearted even when they were very serious, and Tony found himself drowsing.

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he thought he heard Barnes say, as he climbed off the bed and pulled the blanket up over Tony’s shoulders. “I’ll keep watch.”

***

It was no use.

The pilot’s couch, even once Tony had disabled the safety features, was just not meant to be slept in. It kept Barnes' knees at an unnatural angle that made his toes fall asleep and then prickle with complaints, and the degree that he was held vertically caused the blanket to slip around his stomach, to the point that he woke up with his shoulder _aching_ from the cold.

Shuttles were not meant for long-term voyages. Most of the previous day’s heat -- left over from the Avenger’s much more comfortable settings -- had bled out into the blackness of space. Barnes could keep the air temperature above fifty degrees, but at the cost of any sort of fuel efficiency, and it would stretch their traveling time out by another two days, and he wasn’t sure they had the cores for that. The chill wasn’t so bad, if he was dressed for work in cold weather, but it didn’t work well for sleeping.

The shuttle’s little bunk room was a bit warmer, sealed on the inside, and insulated to trap an occupant's body heat. There was barely enough room in there for the bunk, though.

The third time Barnes jerked awake because he was cold, the scars around his artificial arm screaming in agony, he got up. Wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. Tony could put up with him for one more night, that was all it would be. But Barnes wouldn’t be any good to him if he was sleep-deprived, angry, and in pain.

“Shove over, shortstack,” Barnes told him. Maybe he could arrange the blankets so that they were separated by a couple layers of cloth. Except, oh, _frell_ , Tony was still mostly undressed. And his skin was so _warm_. Barnes couldn’t help it. His toes crept into that warm spot, sliding under Tony’s calf.

“Mm?” Tony opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at Barnes, a sweet, slightly dopey smile on his face. “Y’r freezin’” he mumbled. “C’mon in, get warm.” He tugged Barnes closer, twining around him almost immediately, exactly the way he had the previous night, and nestled his head into the hollow of Barnes’ shoulder.

He smelled sleep-warm and of the oil Barnes had rubbed into his skin. Curled around Barnes like a cling-vine. The feel of Tony, snuggled up, made Barnes’ throat tight with… something. He felt the oddest protective urge, wanting to keep Tony safe and comfortable. _Safe from what, you idiot, rampant space worms?_ There was nothing in the black to protect Tony from. Not really.

He dropped his chin until he was nuzzling at Tony’s forehead, feeling the tickle of Tony’s hair against his nose, the heat of his skin mere millimeters away from Barnes’ lips. _He’d never know._

Barnes let himself do it. Pressed a kiss to Tony’s temple. “Sleep well, sweetheart,” he whispered.

Finally warm, comfortable, with Tony in his arms again, Barnes let himself drift off to sleep.

The ship’s minor alerts were all dim chirps and chimes, sometimes accompanied by a brief, softly flashing light.

When the strident bray of a crisis alarm went off, Barnes found himself on the floor again, just through sheer, startled reflex. The alarm blatted unpleasantly, impossible to sleep through. And even without the alarm, the accompanying red lights and shuddering vibrations through the hull would have woken a corpse.


	16. Chapter 16

Tony bolted upright and rolled straight out of the bed, hitting the floor at a run. “Frell, it’s cold out here!” he complained, even as he was slapping at the pilot’s console, pulling up schematics and overlays. “We’ve lost a gorram seal,” he reported. “Please, please, _please_ tell me the EVA suit is in place.”

“We can’t seal from _outside_ ,” Barnes yelled back, struggling to get untangled from the blankets, “we’re in frellin’ FTL. Shut the alarm down, shut it down.”

Tony smacked a few more panels and the alarm went silent, though the red lights continued to flash. “Okay. Okay, we can...” He flipped through the schematic. “I can jury-rig a patch on the inside. It’ll be lossy, but we’re only a few hours from normal space, so it should hold long enough. Help me find something flexible and as airtight as possible.”

Barnes spared Tony a quick look, tossed the blanket over his shoulders. The air had lost a lot of heat with the leak, no wonder it had gotten so frelling cold, and his breath came out in puffs of white. “Put your gorram shoes on before you get frostbite,” he snapped, taking his own advice and shoving his toes into his boots.

Something airtight and flexible?

He scouted the ship, brain fully in mission-mode, eyeballing and discarding items. He ended up in the galley, then-- ah!

“Tony?” He came back with several crinkled, thin foil lined wrappers from their dinners, and the chocolate bars. Air tight to keep things fresh for years, difficult, if not impossible to tear, even along the _Tear Here_ strips. Flexible, as the wrap was used around a wide variety of product.

While Barnes had been looking, Tony had gotten dressed and then pried up several panels from the floor. He was kneeling in the hole it made, delicately arranged over and around the pipes and wire bundles and other parts. He was holding what looked like a thread from his shirt, or maybe a hair -- Bucky’s; it was too long to be Tony’s -- and moving it slowly back and forth over the seam in the hullplate.

He looked up when Bucky showed him the packaging, and smiled, bright and happy. “That’s perfect!” He held out a hand for it. “Can you get the tape out of the medkit, too?” He folded the larger wrapper over on itself and pressed it carefully against the seam, then held it in place as he went back to watching the hair.

He grabbed tape, and then just for good measure, a bottle of NuSkin, the spray on wound-sealer. Hey, if it could keep blood in, it could probably keep the oxygen in, too. “Here,” he said. It was _cold_ , they were still losing heat. If Tony couldn’t stop the leak, they’d freeze to death before they made planetfall.

Tony folded the wrappers over on themselves several times and taped them down against the seam, then sprayed the NuSkin over the tape. He cursed under his breath the whole time, mostly calling Steve a colorful variety of creatures and deviants for skimping on maintenance costs. It was so cold, his hands were shaking as he tested the air movement, making it hard to tell whether air was being sucked out or if it was just the movement of his hands.

“Come here,” he called after a little while. “How steady can you hold that prosthetic?”

“Down to the micron, if you need it,” Barnes told him. “There’s a locking feature. Used it to control the recoil on a GL-1136 anti-tank gun, once. Tell me what to do.”

“Hold this,” Tony said. It was definitely one of Barnes’ hairs. Tony had probably found it stuck to the pilot’s chair. “Right here, over the patch. I need to see if any air is moving around it. Start on this end, and when I tell you it’s good, move down another centimeter or so.”

Barnes laid down, getting as steady as possible. He winced away from the cold floor, then pushed it from his mind. He could be uncomfortable later, provided he could earn them a _later_. The hair trembled and then he issued the commands. Nerves sizzled and tingled and then the interior gimbals engaged. The hair went still as wire.

“Good, that’s good. Next.”

They worked their way down the patch, the hair hanging perfectly straight and limp, until they got to the very end. Then it swayed in a small breeze that came from no particular direction, swirling around the hull.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Tony sighed. “Not quite long enough.” He put four layers of tape over the rest of the hullplate seam and sprayed on an extra-thick layer of NuSkin. “It won’t hold for long,” he said, “especially if that outer seal gives way much further. But it should get us to the end of the FTL run, at least. Maybe all the way to planetside.”

Barnes nodded. “Okay. You’ve done all you can do.” He pulled Tony into an embrace, rubbing up and down his arms to warm him. “We’re losing heat. We’ve got two choices and they’re both bad. Slow down to build heat, but gives the patch more time to tear. Or freeze tryin' to make it there.” He gave Tony a very serious look. “Get in the EVA suit.”

“What? No. You just said I can’t go out to do the patch.”

“You’re not going outside,” Barnes said. He tugged Tony down to the airlock room and started shoving bits of the suit at him. There was only one. “What you’re going to do is seal in. Preserve ship’s air and body heat.”

“And what about you?” Tony demanded. “I’m not letting you freeze!”

“I’m enhanced,” Barnes pointed out, desperately. “I can take it. More than you can. Get in the suit, Tony!”

“You’ve got a heat sink attached to your body,” Tony pointed out ruthlessly. “You’re losing heat faster than I am.”

“Tony, listen to me,” Barnes said. “I’ll do everything I can to stay warm. Promise. But you’re more important than I am. Everything is riding on you. I can’t do it -- can’t find your enhancile, can’t bring the matter to the Council. _It has to be you_. So you get in that suit and you _live_ , gorram it.” _Don’t you make me watch you die, please don’t._

Tony stared at him for another moment, frustration writ large across his features. Then he cursed and started stripping out of his clothes. “These won’t make much difference in the suit,” he said, “so you wear them. I know they won’t fit right, but every layer counts.” He thrust his shirt at Barnes, challenge in his eyes.

Barnes nodded, pulling on the layers. He would use Tony’s sock as a glove as soon as he didn’t need his fingers for close work. “Get in, I’ll help you,” Barnes told him, holding out boots first, and then zipping Tony up, slapping the seals into place. When the collar ring was ready, he hesitated then leaned in, pressing his lips against Tony’s for a brief second. “ _You live_.” And dropped the helmet in place, locking it to the ring. He punched up the internal pressure, letting it fill with warmer air. Watched as Tony still shivered, from fear and frustration as much as cold, Barnes thought.

He made his way to the galley, started heating as much of the prepacked food as possible, overloading the small reconstitution unit. “Take them into the sonic shower. Smallest area on the ship. I’ll seal myself in there. You’ll have to land the shuttle.”

Tony looked pale, but he nodded determinedly. “I can land the shuttle. You frelling well live, too, you hear me? Take twenty showers in a row if you have to, just for that heatblast at the end.”

“I will. We’ll be fine, sweetheart,” Barnes said. “Lived through frellin’ worse than this.” He crawled into the sonic shower and yanked the door down. He couldn’t see Tony anymore. He couldn’t see anything, except the white walls and the smudges of dirt and grime that caked around the drain. The whole place smelled like cheap tomato sauce and vat-grown beef. It was warmer in there. A bit. Enough that the shakes slowed.

Barnes started the shower cycle, wrapped his arms around his head and kept his eyes closed. He could take it. He could bear it. It was only a few hours to planetfall.

A few hours.

***

The EVA suit was too big for him. Better too big than too small, of course, but still. Too big. It got in the way. And while it kept his body heat in, it never really got _warm_. Tony’s nose itched, and he couldn’t scratch it. And the more he thought about it, the more it itched, until he was just about ready to pop the frelling helmet off to scratch it. Except then Barnes would kill him.

Barnes had kissed him. Why the frell had Barnes kissed him? This was a discussion they were going to have as soon as they weren’t in imminent danger of death, because Tony really did not understand what had happened there.

Barnes had called him ‘sweetheart’, too, and that... Maybe Barnes wasn’t entirely opposed to the whole intimacy idea as Tony had thought. Definitely talking. And maybe other things.

He watched the countdown timer. Almost, almost, almost time to drop out of FTL, another ten minutes. Nine.

What if Barnes hadn’t made it? What if Tony landed the ship and Barnes had-- No. _No_. He was alive. He’d promised. The shower hadn’t cycled for a while, but maybe that just meant that the stall was holding heat better. Or Barnes was taking a break, because sonic showers kind of sucked.

Eight. Seven.

The makeshift seal was holding, more or less. At least if it got worse, Tony was already suited up and ready to go outside as soon as they broke out of FTL.

Six. Five.

The shower still hadn’t cycled. Tony wanted to go back there and bang on the door, make Barnes answer him. Tell him what that kiss had been for. Had it been a farewell?

No.

 _No_.

Four. Three.

Tony strapped into the pilot’s chair. It was awkward, in the EVA suit, but he managed it. The chair adjusted to fit him, and Tony sort of hated it for forgetting Barnes’ shape so easily.

Two.

One.

Tony held his breath, one eye on the clock and the other on the ship’s controls. The blueshifted stars in the viewport spiraled gently and faded back into a normal view. An alarm blared, and Tony slapped it silent: a planet was just to port. Exactly where it ought to be, because _frell_ , Barnes was a _frelling brilliant_ pilot.

Tony pulled at the stick, taking the shuttle toward the planet. He’d done in-space piloting before. He’d done planetside piloting. He’d never taken a ship from space to ground.

He knew the theory, of course. You couldn’t properly maintain an engine unless you understood all the stresses on it, and dropping into atmo was a huge stress. Luckily, the shuttle had been specifically designed for that stress, so Tony didn’t have to worry about the fact that he didn’t have a mechanic on standby in the engine compartment.

He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of every world, then angled the ship into the atmosphere.

It was a clear day, over Gulmira Station, and that was good, because Tony didn’t think he could handle the battering of air _and_ high winds. He made a mental note to get his frelling pilot’s license updated. As soon as he was a person again.

He had to peel his hand off the controls to prod at the comms. “Shuttle on approach, Gulmira Station,” he said. “We’ve got a bad exoseal and an interior temperature below freezing; advise with docking orders please.”

“This is Gulmira Station,” a crisp voice responded. “I am the Station’s emergency Artificial Intelligence, you may address me as YINSEN. We have you on approach and are deploying medical aid and safety crews. Please surrender your vessel to me on my mark and I will guide you the rest of the way in.”

“Copy that, YINSEN,” Tony agreed. He synched the shuttle’s landing systems with Gulmira’s guidance beacon. From there, it was smooth sailing. Tony barely had to nudge the shuttle as it was directed into a docking bay.

He couldn't open the airhatch until the hull had cooled enough, so he shed the gorram helmet and beelined for the bathroom. “Barnes!” He banged on the door. “Barnes! We’re on the ground, c’mon out!”

There was no answer. There was no movement. Tony shoved at the door -- the sonic shower’s lock was frozen shut, and it was probably only because the gorram unit was so old that he got it open at all.

Barnes was on the floor in the unit, curled up in a tight ball. Not moving. Not breathing.

There was frost in his hair.


	17. Chapter 17

“No,” Tony said dumbly. He reached out, stopped. Couldn’t reach any further, like there was a barrier between them that prevented his movement. “Barnes. Barnes, wake up!”

Barnes didn’t move. His hair didn’t even stir. “Come on, sweetheart, we made it,” Tony said. “We’re on the ground, it’s getting warm now. You can wake up.”

Barnes still didn’t move, and Tony’s chest ached behind the arc reactor, like someone was pulling it out. “Barnes, please,” he begged.

No. No and no and no. Frell, Tony should have checked on Barnes earlier. Should have pounded on that door and made him answer. Shouldn’t have let him sleep. Shouldn’t have let him go at all.

Tony all but tore off the EVA suit, not caring that it was still chilly in the ship and he was left in his underwear. He knelt by the door to the shower. “Please, honey, just wake up for me,” he begged, but it was useless, wasn’t it?

And it was all Tony’s fault. Tony hadn’t patched the seal well enough. Had fought with Steve in the first place, hadn’t trusted the team...

A loud banging jolted him out of his thoughts. The promised medical team. Too late.

His face was wet; he wiped it with one hand.

The med team would take Barnes away. Tony wouldn’t see him again. He took another long look at Barnes’ face, smooth in repose. The banging came again, louder. They’d force the hatch if he didn’t open it, and then the shuttle would be scragged. Tony would never get to Knowhere, and it would all have been in vain.

Barnes would have sacrificed himself in vain.

No.

Tony stood, slow and numb, and made his way to the hatch. Keyed in the open sequence.

The medical team came aboard with a flurry of noise and stomping feet and a frelling load of technical jargon that Tony couldn’t really follow. Two of them, a woman and a man with a shock of curly hair, stopped to examine Tony, shine a light in his eyes, ask him questions that he was too numb to answer.

They did a scan of his vitals, consulted a hand-held diagnostics tool. “--lladium poisoning?” the girl was saying as Tony tried to focus, desperate for something to hold on to. “... going to give you an injection of lithium dioxide, sir?”

“What?” Tony said, then shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the small swarm surrounding Barnes in the shower. “Yes, fine, whatever.”

The woman jammed the injector kit against Tony’s neck, and a quad of needles stabbed into his throat.

“Feel sorry for tha’ puer bastard,” the man said, jerking his chin back at the shower unit. “Smar’ move, usin’ the sonics like tha’.”

Physical pain that Tony hadn’t even realized was there receded, leaving his skin sparking and fresh. It only made more room for the gaping wound of Barnes’ loss, though, grief that transmuted into anger, and he snarled at the curly-haired man. “Didn’t do him any good, though, did it? Just dragged out the inevitable.” Frell, he was _not_ going to weep, not now, not where these people could see it.

The man blinked. “Wha’, ‘im? Don’t you be countin’ stones just yet, laddie,” he said. “Registers full brain activity. Team’s got ‘im. Tha’ they do, it’s just gonna--”

Barnes fishtailed, back arched in such a severe curve that Tony thought he’d snap his own spine. Color raced out from the injector kit one of the techs had stabbed into his chest.

“Give him another twenty.”

A second kit, stabbed less than an inch away.

Barnes’ eyes opened, sightlessly. His hands clawed out at nothingness. And then he _screamed_.

Screamed like he was being tortured.

Like he was being burned alive.

Blood ran down the side of his mouth, down his throat. Disappeared into his hair.

He whooped, sucking in a huge breath and then collapsed, sobbing softly.

“--hurt.” The med tech finished, lamely. He patted Tony on the shoulder. “See? ‘E’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Tony pushed the techs aside and half-stumbled across the floor, falling to his knees at Barnes’ side. “Barnes?” he whispered. He reached out, brushed the hair back from Barnes’ face. “Are you--” He didn’t know how to finish that. Are you alive? Are you in pain? Are you real?

“Tony?” Barnes turned his head, his eyes still glazed with pain. They cleared, slowly focusing on the spot where Tony was. “There you are. ...promised. S’all right… s’all right, sweetheart.” Barnes’ eyes slipped closed again, and he slumped to the floor, breathing.

“Subject’s experienced a loss of consciousness. Prep him for transport. You’re with him?” Another tech, a tiny, dark-haired woman with a thin, disapproving mouth, eyed him. “Sterile clothes.” She thrust a package in Tony’s direction. “Decon at the gates, then we’ll put you both in a room. You can walk, I’m not carrying you.”

Tony nodded and tugged on the sterile scrubs with shaking hands. He moved as quickly as he could, not wanting them to take Barnes out of his sight even for a moment. “How long will he be out like that?”

“Not long. Few hours, maybe,” the woman told him, not looking back as she pushed the grav-stretcher. “Body chemistry suggested he’s been in deep freeze before. Might be a little disoriented when he wakes up.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Tony said, trying to make it sound firm rather than pleading. “I’ll be there when he wakes up, help him through it.”

The woman shrugged like it make no difference to her. It probably didn’t.

“Good on you, laddie,” the curly-haired tech said, patting Tony’s shoulder. “Good luck, safe trip. Repair crew will be out here double time to get you sealed up.”

“Welcome to Gulmira,” the other woman added, skipping up to walk next to her counterpart. She handed Tony a plasfilm chit. “If you are happy with our service, please consider logging into the ‘net and leaving your compliments.”

“I’ll. Uh. I’ll do that,” Tony agreed dumbly, sticking the chit in the pocket of the scrubs.

The hospital room was like hospital rooms everywhere. Plain, white, sterile. Smelled of chemicals. They hooked Barnes up to a wide variety of machines that measured his vitals, blood chemistry, and other necessary (and unnecessary) functions. One of the techs even slid a slicer’s rod into Barnes’ artificial arm, just below the battery pack.

“If he wakes up, press this button to alert a team, otherwise, the doctor will get to you as soon as possible,” the woman said. “And don’t forget. I’m Fitz, this is Simmons.”

“You have tha’ backward again, Jemma,” the curly haired tech corrected her with a wide grin. “I’m Fitz, and you are Simmons.” He put an arm around the woman’s waist and led her out of the room.

The chair for visitors was surprisingly comfortable.

Tony dragged it as close to the bed as possible and took Barnes’ hand in both of his. “We’re going to be okay,” he said. “I’m right here, and we’re okay.”

There was something oddly comforting about the way Barnes’ fingers tightened on his. The rise and fall of his chest. The way his eyelids fluttered sometimes, as if he were dreaming.

A doctor came in; Tony barely even paid attention, except that he had a nurse give Barnes an injection, and then Tony one, too. “Local vaccinations,” he explained. “And nutrients. You’re both sub-par. Been in space a while? Calcium load is low.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s been a while since we were last planetbound,” Tony agreed. Asgard seemed like a thousand years ago, and anyway, they hadn’t been there for long. He let the nurse inject him and Barnes, then went back to sitting by Barnes’ side, occasionally running his fingers over the back of Barnes’ hand and murmuring comforting nonsense.

Tony was utterly unprepared when the room’s door burst in and there was a stunner muzzle shoved in his face.

“On the floor, on the floor. Face down, hands behind your head. Do it _now_ , I will not hesitate to liquify your eyeballs, enhancile!”

Tony’s hands went up and he carefully dropped out of the chair to the floor. What the frell? Gulmira was supposed to be an enhancile-safe station! “What-- What’s happening?” Tony asked. “Why--”

“Captain Raza,” the man barked, staring at Tony with eyes full of loathing. “Permission to shut this man up.”

“Now now,” the captain said. Tony, from his position on the floor, couldn’t see more than the man’s legs and the bottom of his chin. “Look at him, so obedient, on the floor there. You take your job too seriously, Bakaar. The Ten Rings prizes loyalty and efficiency, not fanaticism. Why, we have no idea who we’re dealing with here.”

“With your permission, sir,” Bakaar said. “Two unidentified enhanciles, traveling alone in a shuttle older than my grandmother. There is no way they are legal.”

“Bakaar, your _grandmother_?” The captain shook his head and laughed. There was no humor in that sound. “Can we be a little more specific and a little less colorful? Come, come young man, get up, stand up. Let me have a look at you.”

Tony hesitated, then carefully stood up, keeping his hands in plain sight. He didn’t want Bakaar to get nervous. “What’s going on?” he asked. He didn’t look at Barnes. Didn’t let his hands or voice shake.

“Recent change in government system, out with the old, in with the new,” Raza told him. “Gulmira is under the protection of the Ten Rings, now. Young men like Bakaar, they get excited, want to prove themselves. But I’m sure everything is just fine. Your papers are in order, yes? Not any of this freed-enhancile riff-raff running amok in space, surely not.”

Tony had forged papers, but he had no idea if Barnes had found them or packed them. “In my luggage case on the shuttle,” he said anyway, because he’d take whatever bought them a little time.

“No need for that,” Raza said. “We have better methods, now. You don’t mind do you? New technology, straight from Stark Industries. Retinal patterns and the coding in an enhancile’s blood, all on a cross-galactic database. _Marvelous_. Quite a wonder.”

From _Stark Industries?_ What the frell had Obie been up to? Tony took a breath. “We’ve been spacebound a long time,” he tried. “Doctor even mentioned it. So we haven’t been anywhere that would register us, I guess.” That was pure bravado; most corporations and all governments had already kept databases for their enhanciles. If Obie had simply convinced them to link together... They were in the gorram dren.

“Well, that’s all right, young man, we’ll get you right into the system,” Raza said, and his smile could have cut paper. “Who do you belong to?”

Bakaar raised his stunner, the charging capacitor whining with subtle malice. Frell, Tony was going to be shot no matter what he did. He supposed being shot in a hospital was the best place for it, assuming they'd let the doctor treat him.

“Me,” said a rough voice from behind Tony. “He belongs _to me_. Hail Hydra.”

Tony turned in shock. Barnes was awake, slowly pushing himself upright, his eyes cold and merciless. “What?”

“ _No sudden moves_!” Bakaar burst out, and then he jerked his stunner back and Tony took a blast to the spine. Putting him on the floor, quivering in pain, held down by the charge. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe. The arc-reactor in his chest went crazy.

Tony had to focus on trying to breathe, on trying to calm the reactor before it overloaded and discharged all that extra energy straight into his system. Had to focus on not screaming at the pain. Frelling dren, that hurt.

“You want identification?” Barnes was standing over Tony’s form, legs spread, balance on the balls of his feet. “Here’s my identification.” He flicked the artificial arm and a holographic card popped up in his palm. Tony couldn’t read it. “Yeah. You got that? So, you know who I am. This is my frelling bounty. He’s _mine_ and you can’t have him, and if you so much as touch him again, I will cut off your _frelling hands_ and feed them to the dogs!”

“Sir, we--”

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hail Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra,” Raza and Bakaar muttered, resentful. Bakaar’s glare intensified as he stared at Tony, writhing on the floor.

“I don’t believe I heard you correctly,” Barnes said. “Hail. _Hydra_.”

“Hail Hydra!”

“Get the frell out of here,” Barnes snapped. “And send me a doctor. If you’ve injured my bounty, I’m going to carve the price of him out of your skin. Somewhere very close to the bone, I think.”

Raza and Bakaar left, but the relief was short-lived. Tony had examined that arm and not found any identification in it. Where had Barnes been hiding it? Had he fed Raza a story, or was he actually tricking Tony into going with him?

Or both? It wasn’t unheard-of for enhanciles to go rogue and hunt their own kind.

What had just happened?

 


	18. Chapter 18

Bucky leaned hard on his rank. He ordered food, water, fuel, air and repairs for the shuttle. Clothes and other supplies to be loaded. As soon as he'd proven his identity, he had nearly unlimited access to Hydra's planetary accounts.

The requested doctor came in, checked Tony over. He was nervous, kept darting glances at Barnes. Like Barnes was going to rip his head off if he reported that Tony was ill or hurt.

It wasn’t entirely unlikely.

Seeing Tony forced to the ground, a frelling stunner at the back of his head, had been one of the worst experiences Barnes had had in a while. Which included being forcibly removed from inadequate cryo. His enhanced hearing detected the chaos from Tony's heart; he'd been convinced the man was going to die from it.

Finally the doc left, reporting Tony in as reasonably good health as could be expected, left a formula for a nutrient chlorophyll drink that Tony should consume to slow -- what the frell was palladium poisoning? -- the course of the illness through his system. “There’s no known cure,” the doctor said, “but you can stem the progression for a while. Blood toxicity is only nine percent at the moment, but it will get worse.”

“Get out,” Barnes snarled.

Tony didn’t look up. He just sat there.

“Tony?”

“What.” He still didn’t look up, toying with the hem of the blanket around his shoulders.

Barnes swallowed around a hard lump in his throat. “Tony, we don’t have much time,” he started. Practical as it was to just snap orders -- he wasn’t kidding about the time limits -- he couldn’t do that to Tony. “Come here, come here, let me look at you.” He’d closed his eyes in the sonic shower, certain that he’d never open them again, positive he’d never see that mobile, gorgeous face again. Holding on to the memory, because if he had to die, he was going to die with Tony’s face in front of him, Tony’s name on his tongue. “Let me look at you?”

Tony didn’t move for a long moment. Then he straightened, dropped the blanket to the floor, and stood up, arms spread. “Here I am,” he said. “Bounty all intact.” He wasn’t looking at Barnes’ face, and then he _was_ , eyes sharp and piercing, searching for something that Barnes didn’t know how to give him. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I’ve told you _everything_ ,” Barnes said, and he had, he really had. Everything he remembered, everything that he was. If he hasn't stressed exactly what his rank meant, that he’d kept it locked away, that was because he hadn’t quite understood the full horror of it himself. It wasn’t fair, but it was the truth. “Look, I had to give them something. I _had to_. I can… he was going to shoot you again, Tony, and I didn’t know what that would do to you. I didn’t know if I could stop him in time. All I gave them was the truth. And now, we gotta go, sweetheart. We _really_ do.”

Tony looked like he might argue, but then his lips pressed together and he nodded shortly. “Did they fix the bad seal?”

Barnes shrugged, one arm moving up and then dropping slightly. “Probably rushing to finish it now. I… my title has some pull. They’ll want us on our way and happy, and preferably as quickly as possible.”

Tony nodded again. “Okay. Let’s go, then.” He picked up the blanket off the floor and draped it over the end of the bed, then opened the door. “We came in from that direction.” He started walking, stride long and confident despite his still-bare feet.

“Sir,” a woman said -- a nurse, or a med-tech. “Sir, we’ve filled your requirements, getting them ship-board now. Here.” She shoved a box in Barnes’ direction. “It’s another lithium dioxide kit. If you want him alive, whenever you get where you’re going.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “Enhancements have unexpected side effects, sometimes.”

Didn’t he frelling well know it? “Right,” Barnes drawled.

He snatched up the kit and ran, catching up with Tony in moments. Checked his chrono. Scanned the skies over Gulmira port, even though that wasn’t going to do any good. By the time there were Hydra ships visible, it’d be much too late to run. They’d be better off throwing themselves under the nearest launching shuttle and letting their atoms scatter in the morning breeze.

“Is my ship ready?” Barnes barked as soon as they drew near it.

“Yes, yes, sir, it was a quick patch, nothing major.”

“Nothing major almost killed us both, so you’d better stand behind that repair,” Barnes snarled.

“Yes… yes sir.” The tech was cowering, hands raised placatingly.

“Hail Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra.”

“Get onboard,” Barnes said to Tony, then turned back to the tech. “Get on the horn and clear me a launch pattern. I want off this rock in ten. Got it?”

He didn’t bother to watch the man scramble for the comm unit. He boarded, slammed the hatch button on his way by.

“This is Gulmira Port, you are cleared on a vector twelve. Godspeed, Fist of Hydra,” the Port’s AI saluted him as Barnes dropped into the pilot’s couch, strapping in.

Tony didn’t take the copilot’s seat, as he had before. Instead, he was rummaging in the luggage pod, probably for clothes. He didn’t strap down until the launch engines had already kicked in, and didn’t say a word for the entire liftoff.

Barnes didn’t take an easy breath until they were out of atmo. “Charging the FTL. Jump in five minutes.” Prayed to gods that didn’t exist that they had five minutes. Scanned the incoming event signatures. Eight minutes out, that was fine. Six minutes out. Good enough. Three. Frell, three and a half minutes out. And the signature. Oh, frell, it was _huge_ , whatever it was. A destroyer. “Tony…”  

Tony looked bleak. “What now?”

“We have a Hydra destroyer insystem in three minutes,” Barnes reported. “If you can do anything to make the FTL charge faster, right now is the frelling time to do it.”

Tony looked at him sideways. “You sure you don’t want to just turn me in?” he said, a little bitterly. But he didn’t wait for a response before he was pulling the panel off the console and practically climbing inside.

When the _HCS Steadfast_ materialized, it blotted out the entire starfield. Barnes had seen it before, but never had he been in a state to fully appreciate the horror of it. The craft was capable to defeating an entire planet’s worth of defenses, carrying enough crew, soldiers, and weapons to hold the planet, once it was conquered. Only inner Core worlds would have the defenses to even think about fighting back.

“Fist of Hydra.” Communications opened without Barnes’ authority. “Heave to and prepare to open your hatch to boarders.”

“On whose authority?”

“Director Pierce would like a word,” the communications officer said. “He’s been wondering where you’ve been.”

“Mission status is classified to Access Codes 2 and higher.” That was a tactical delay; someone was bound to have his gorram codes on that ship. “Tony, hurry up! And if you’ve got time down there, cut the frelling comms!”

“Holding for codes, one moment.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said, and he sounded slightly more like his own self, if wound very tense. “You’ve got that shot the nurse gave you, right? This is going to hurt like frell.”

The whining sound of a charging BEHS drive was suddenly echoed from under the console.

“Fist of Hydra,” and that voice was familiar.

“Rumlow,” Barnes acknowledged, helpless to do otherwise.

“Long--”

The panel lit, FTL was charged. Barnes slapped the button. “FTL engaged,” he reported and the sky disappeared in a blur of blue. His nerves juddered and shook as his body fought off the incomplete command. Each note, each syllable keyed a little bit of his obedience. It would wear off, eventually. Leave him in a null state.

But at the moment it was as raw and jagged as a wound.

Tony didn’t come out from under the console, and all the tension had left his legs.

Barnes unstrapped, fell to his knees. “Tony,” he demanded. “What did you do-- oh _frell_ , Tony, no, no, no, no.”

He reached for the connections. Power was slicing up and down from the ship’s consols directly into access lines in Tony’s _arc reactor_. Tony had gone utterly limp, the blueish light flickering across his slack face.

Barnes hesitated. Jerked the connection free; they were already in FTL, they wouldn’t need to charge again until they dropped into sublight.

Crazy, jagged lines of black issued out from Tony’s chest, surrounding the arc-reactor’s casing like high-tech gangrene. The shot, where was it? Barnes scrambled in the layers of clothing until he freed it from the pouch. “Here, here, baby, I’m here, you just hang on, I got you,” Barnes was babbling as he prepped the kit. Jammed the needle housing against Tony’s throat. Thumbed the release.

Tony jerked in Barnes’ arms, and those awful black lines began to recede, but Tony remained unconscious for long, terrible moments. Finally, after what seemed far too long, he stirred, and his eyes fluttered open. He smiled up at Barnes sleepily, and then he woke up the rest of the way and scrambled upright. “What happened? Did it work?”

“We achieved FTL,” Barnes said, then, “at nearly th’ cost of your life!” It was too much, too frelling much, and Barnes gripped Tony’s chin, turned his face, and leaned in. Claimed that mobile, sweet mouth with a brutally hard kiss, full of relief and panic and fear and desperation and at the very end of it, utter and complete devotion.

Tony gasped, and then grabbed his hair and was kissing him back with exactly the same fervor and frantic need. It was savage, almost violent, more teeth than tongue, breath coming hard and fast.

Then Tony pushed Barnes out to arm’s length, though he kept his hand tangled in Barnes’ shirt. “I think,” he panted, “I deserve some kind of explanation.”

Barnes nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” he said, still panting for breath like he’d run twenty klicks or just been in a fight. “Come on out from there, we’ll… talk.” He brushed one hand along Tony’s hair, keeping him from bumping his head on the panel housing. He drew Tony up to his feet, glanced over at the ship’s screen. Six hours in FTL before anything could happen.

He walked them back to the ship’s galley, and the dock’s crew had reloaded their supplies. Nice. He gently disentangled Tony’s hands from his shirt and pulled out… “Hey, real coffee. Certified Columbian.”

Tony finally dragged his gaze from Bucky’s face to the package in Bucky’s hand. “Frell,” he breathed. “Earth-grown coffee? Now I know I’m dead. Or in a really great coma or something.”

“You’re fine,” Barnes said. His hands were shaking as he loaded the pak into the pot. “You’re fine, okay, you are. You’re _fine_. We made it, you’re safe.” It was all he could do not to pat Tony over and make _absolutely certain_ of it.

“Okay,” Tony said. “If you say so.” He kept watching Barnes out of the corner of his eye as the coffee brewed, though, as if he weren’t sure whether Barnes was going to continue to exist.

Two mugs of coffee. Oh, sugar. Real, honest-to-frell crystal sugar. Barnes could have laughed. All the little luxuries for the Fist of Hydra. Who would never even have noticed them. He put Tony’s mug down and then let himself drop into one of the cafe chairs. “I… I don’t know where to start. Ask me anything.”

“For the sake of my sanity,” Tony said, wrapping his hands around his mug, “I’m going to assume you were lying when you said I was your bounty. Because otherwise why did we just run away from the gigantic Hydra ship?”

“I wasn’t entirely lying,” Barnes said, staring down at the table. “I hadn’t been given the mission yet, but I heard the techs before they put me in cryo. Find the heir of Stark Industries. Alive if possible, dead if necessary. A difficult task. They expected me to be on the move for _months_ , trying to track you down.” He took a deep breath. “I am _choosing_ not to fulfill that mission.”

“Huh.” Tony looked down into his coffee for a moment. “Any idea where that mission came from? I thought for sure Obie would pretend I’d just gone into one of my hermit-like work sprees to cover my sudden absence.”

Barnes shook his head. “I… don’t know. They.. uh. They don’t tell the Fist of Hydra much. Just enough to get the job done, then it’s back in storage.” He couldn’t quite repress the shudder of dread there. Cryo was never painless, it wasn’t dreamless, it wasn’t _sleep_. It was utter horror, trapped inside his own dead body, unable to escape, unable to scream, unable to rest. Waiting. Never knowing how long it had been, how long it would be. Wondering if it would ever end. Praying that it did.

“Fist of Hydra,” Tony said. “Sounds ominous.”

“It’s a… supposedly a position of great honor,” Barnes said. “It’s not. I didn’t volunteer. And… uh, every time I started developin’ my own mind again, they’d wipe me down and start over. This is the longest I been sane in... frell, I don’t even know. I knew your father when he was younger than you are now. So, however long that’s been. I… I fell. I fell--” He’d fallen a long time. A long time into deep snow and icy water, and then he’d been _taken_. “I fell during an op. Left behind. Captured. The Fist of Hydra… Director Pierce’s _personal_ assassin. Jus’ a mindless tool. And… now they know I’m back on the grid. But I didn’t… I didn’t know how else to save you.”

“Why?” Tony demanded. “Now that they know you survived the attack on that transport, they won’t stop coming after you! The dual-power source will help prevent them from tracing us, but Hydra has the power to just... occupy every place known to be friendly to enhanciles and _wait_. Why would you do that for _me_? Other opportunities will come!”

“I can’t. I can’t go back to that,” Barnes said. “And… and I can’t let you go. I’m sorry, I am, but I’m selfish and I cannot bear it if there’s a universe and you’re not in it.” Barnes folded his arms on the table and put his forehead down on them, hiding his face, his grief, his fear.

Tony’s breathing sounded loud in the small room. “So,” he said softly, “when you kissed me, before. Before Gulmira. You... meant it. That you want me.”

“Yes.” Barnes forced himself to look up, to give that much to Tony, no matter what. “Yes. I do.”

Tony looked confused more than anything else. “Then why did you say we should go our separate ways when we get to Knowhere?”

“What’s in me,” Barnes said, “what makes me the Fist of Hydra. That’s _still there_ , Tony. You can’t trust me. You can’t _ever_ trust me. Even if we’re always together, they could filter it in through the comm system, I could pick up an encrypted message, anything. You’ll never be safe around me. I can’t… I can’t risk that. I thought it’d be safer, if we went our separate ways.” He doodled nonsense pictures on the table with one finger. “It isn’t, anymore. I know too much about your plans, your habits. I’ll… I’ll find you. _I will always find you._ I… I don’t know what to do, anymore.”

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the smut-averse: There's a little talk at the beginning, and then you can just skip to the next chapter. :D

Tony shook his head. “Obviously,” he said, “we stick together. We figure out how to make you safe.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Barnes said. “There’s so much that I don’t know. Sometimes… I just act on instincts that I don’t even know I have. And I hate it, I _hate_ it, and it scares me, and if I did anything to you, Tony, I don’t know how I would ever live with that.”

“Well, if it wasn’t for you, I’d probably still be cooling my heels on the _Avenger_ now, waiting to be dumped off on some Stark Industries outpost station. So I’d say I’m better off for having you with me.”

“If it hadn’t been for me, Steve would never have made you,” Barnes said, snorting. “You were doin’ jus’ fine.” At the same time, Barnes wasn’t sure. If the _Avenger_ hadn’t picked him up, where would he be? Deep spaced? Or recovered and back with Hydra and being sent out to capture (or kill) this remarkable man, without ever having known… anything? “I’ll do everything I can, but you have to promise me, promise me, Tony, if you have to, you will use that sleep word, and you will drop me, and _you will run_.”

“I’ll use the word,” Tony promised. “I won’t let them use you against me.”

“Okay, okay,” Barnes said, and his hands were shaking again. Like he’d almost lost Tony three times in less than twenty-four hours. Huh, who’d have thought that. “Come here, please, I just… I just need…” He didn’t even know how to ask for what he needed. _I just need to touch you, just need to feel it, that you’re okay, that you’re safe._

Tony came, pushing close enough to stand between Barnes’ knees. “In this together,” he said softly, and his hands cupped Barnes’ face.

That felt so good, just having Tony’s hands on him that Barnes couldn’t help it. He rubbed his face shamelessly against Tony’s palms, feeling the faint bite of stubble catch along callused fingers. It was hard to imagine, in that perfect moment, that stillness out in the black, that anything else mattered. They could have this. Barnes _could have this_. “Tony, I--”

Tony’s mouth came down on his, slow and sensual and perfect. Tony’s tongue teased at the seam of Barnes’ lips until they opened with a gasp, and then Tony possessed his mouth, luxuriously mapping every inch.

Barnes had kissed Tony before, and with passion, because he was passionate, because Tony was passionate. But this was different, as different as another whole universe. The first taste of Tony’s mouth made him shiver. Shut down his mind as well, left him in a haze of nothing but sweetness and desire. He could feel the scrape of Tony’s beard, the harsh rush of his breath, the lush softness of his mouth.

The kiss grew fiercer, more heated, more rushed, much more wicked as Barnes pushed his tongue into the warmth of Tony’s mouth, tasted and took. He dragged his hands over Tony’s body, wanting, wanting everything.

He pulled back to take a gasping breath, to rest his forehead against Tony’s and just concentrate on breathing, and the rush of his blood, and the way Tony felt under his hands.

“Yeah,” Tony said, voice harsh. “Yeah, that’s... Come on, Barnes. Bunk. I’m not doing this for the first time with you in the _galley_.” He backed up, just enough that Barnes had to follow or stop touching.

It wasn’t a hardship to go where Tony led. A bunk would be nice, they wouldn’t have to rush or balance oddly, or anything like that. There would be time for that, later. Barnes wanted to take his time, wanted to touch and kiss and stroke every bit of Tony that he would allow. “Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s… it’s Bucky,” Bucky almost stammered over his own name. He’d barely said it in decades, but… “You can call me Bucky. Please. I’d like that.” He knew he was blushing again, furious and hot and squirmy.

“Yeah?” Tony cocked his head, studying Bucky, then nodded. “Okay. Bucky it is. Come here and take some clothes off, Bucky.”

It said a lot about the integrity of ship’s cloth that it didn’t tear in his eagerness to get out of it. His shirt went on the floor and then he peeled Tony’s off as well, because Tony hadn’t been specific about whose clothes he was supposed to take off. And then that warm skin was like a siren’s call that Bucky couldn’t ignore any longer and he was pushing Tony gently onto the bunk and licking at his throat.

Tony tipped his head back, yielding his throat to Bucky, and his hands were roaming over Bucky’s skin, tugging at Bucky’s hair, stroking over his shoulders and back. His leg curled around Bucky’s hip, pulling Bucky closer, and closer still, until Tony was arching up against Bucky’s body, pressing them together from chest to knee.

He meant to be gentle, careful, but every touch drove him wild, every kiss stoked a fire he thought had died. Tony’s scent was everywhere, dizzying and intoxicating. He pushed his nose into Tony’s hair, breathing it in. Everything he’d ever thought he’d known was shallow and shadow and mirage and illusion.

This… this was real.

His hands slid down Tony’s back until he was shoving at the waistband of Tony’s trousers, slipping the material free from lithe hips. Getting Tony down to shorts had been perfection. Shoving the shorts down and revealing the whole man was something of a miracle. A miracle that Bucky didn’t deserve, but he was going to take it anyway.

He knew those plump, pink nipples, had brushed his fingers over them before, but now. Now he was going to taste them, lick and suck and soothe until Tony was writhing against him, lost to sensation. Tony rose to his touch with a soft eager sigh.

Bucky had not imagined he would stop, mid-touch, just to look, just to see everything that Tony was, and to realize that he was everything in the universe that Bucky ever wanted, and the only thing that he could never live without. “Tony.” Not a question, but an affirmation.

“I’m right here,” Tony said, looking up to meet Bucky’s eyes, smoothing a hand over Bucky’s hair. “I’ve got you.” He pulled Bucky in for another kiss, heated but slow, and there was nothing that Bucky wouldn’t do to keep those kisses, to make Tony want him like this. Need him.

He struggled a minute to get out of his own clothes, wanting that skin on skin. Every inch of him, pressed against every inch of Tony. Tony moved under him, uninhibited responses urging him on, and his touch grew less gentle, more possessive and demanding. He stroked over the velvety skin, hard lines and muscle and Tony moved with every touch, giving himself over completely, without shame, without fear, without hesitation. The more Bucky tasted and touched, the more Tony gave him, and the more Bucky wanted.

Tony was everything, everything he’d ever wanted.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Bucky murmured, capturing Tony’s nipple, ravaging the sensitive skin with tongue and teeth and lips until it was a hard pebble under his mouth.

Tony arched up into it with a groan, pushing himself into Bucky, begging wordlessly for more. His spine rolled until his cock thrust against Bucky’s stomach, leaving a wet trail. “Yes,” he echoed, voice spiraling into a soft whine.

Perhaps some distant part of him remembered what Bucky was, what Tony was, that they should never have allowed themselves this… softness between them. This open, ragged vulnerability. But it didn’t matter, not when Tony’s cries were sending Bucky spiraling out of control. His tongue tangled with Tony’s and their bodies moved together. All the while, Tony was demanding more, and more, and the clinging, desperate kisses continued.

The brush of Tony’s length against him was a sizzle to his nerves, delicious, and he wanted to taste it. He slid down Tony’s body, trailing heated kisses as he went over that tawny, olive skin. Spread Tony’s thighs apart and took a long, lingering taste. Used his mouth to gently caress and stroke and lick. Kept Tony’s thighs pinned down so there was nothing in his way, and made love to the man in the most carnal way he knew how.

Tony strained against Bucky’s hold in one instant, and in the next was pliant and sweet, as if he couldn’t decide how to react. He begged so prettily, a chorus of cursing and pleas and wordless moans that only served to stoke Bucky’s need into a raging inferno. “Please, oh frell, Bucky, I need-- I need, please...” His fingers stroked restlessly through Bucky’s hair, tugging aimlessly but never pushing.

The sounds he made, so gorgeous, so needy. Bucky moaned in want, taking Tony deep into his mouth. He swallowed around it, pulling his cheeks in and sucking. Flicking his tongue around the head and probing at the sensitive little slit. He curled his hand around the base, twisting in counterpoint to his mouth. Rutted against Tony’s leg, dragged himself over the coarse hair of Tony’s thighs. Tasted the spurt of precome, salt and bitter and wanted to drain every drop of it. He _wanted_ , more than anything in the universe.

He startled when Tony smacked the slender bottle of oil against his wrist, a wordless suggestion, and then laughed out loud when he actually looked at it. Gulmira’s team had swapped it out, the cheap, medicinal rub for something entirely more appropriate, and then he laughed again, feeling himself flush, as he realized what Tony had thought he was going to do, not two days before.

_You are an idiot,_ he accused himself.

“What are you laughing at?” Tony asked, squirming in anticipation. “Come on, I need to feel you in me.”

“Because I jus’ realized what you were thinkin’ last time I had you spread out an’ under me,” Bucky told him, crawling back up to kiss Tony again, let the man taste himself on Bucky’s tongue. “You didn’t want a backrub at all, did you?” He wet his fingers with the lube, traced a line down from the base of Tony’s cock, over his balls, moving back toward the opening to his body.

Tony huffed out a laugh of his own. “It’s not what I thought you were offering, no,” he admitted. “It was a very good backrub, though.”

“This’ll be good, too,” Bucky promised, hoping that was a promise he could keep. He circled his fingers around Tony’s hole, feeling how tight and narrow it was. “Oh, Tony, darlin’.”

Tony hissed and wriggled some more. “It’s been a long time,” he said. “I might not last long. Especially since I seem to recall you having a rather impressive girth.”

Bucky blushed, his neck and cheeks heating up until he was forced to tuck his face against Tony’s neck and breach him with one finger to make him cry out. “ _Impressive_ ,” Bucky snorted against Tony’s throat. “Ridiculous man.” It was just a dick, like every other one. Nothing special about it. Not like Tony’s, gorgeous and perfect as it was, long and achingly hard, and Bucky was already missing the feel of it, pushing against his throat. But he also wasn’t a contortionist.

He slid in and out of Tony’s tight channel with one finger, opening him up, listening to those noises as Tony rocked with him.

“More,” Tony begged, “I need another, I can take another now, please...” He was pushing back down onto Bucky’s touch, trying to make Bucky go faster, deeper, harder.

Two fingers, and he rubbed his thumb against that flat patch of skin behind Tony’s balls, searching, and then finding, that delicate little plum-shape inside him. He drew back to watch Tony writhing, squirming, as Bucky worked him over and open and ready. It was beautiful. It was humbling. Tony’s hands opened and closed around the blanket and he twisted, sinuously, always moving. Sweat glistened on his skin and Bucky lowered his chin to lick the collecting beads right off Tony’s chest. “You’re perfect,” he told Tony, seriously. “So perfect, just look at you.”

“Not even a little,” Tony panted, “but I’m glad you like what you see.” He rocked his hips, trying to make Bucky touch that spot inside again, trying to drive farther down on Bucky’s fingers. “More and more and more,” he begged, “I need it, need you so much...” He lifted a hand from its clenching of the blanket to twine in Bucky’s hair again. “Please, Bucky.”

Bucky rolled them over until Tony was laying, sprawled over his chest. “I… want you t’ do it,” Bucky told him. He was still worried that he might hurt Tony, that glowing arc-reactor in his chest looked so fragile. If Tony was on top, he wouldn’t push on it. Tony could always sit up if he needed to breathe or rest or… “You do it.”

Tony didn’t hesitate. “Okay, yeah, I can...” He straddled Bucky’s hips and reached back to steady Bucky’s cock. “Frell, you’re big,” he said, but he sounded happy about it. He rocked back, letting Bucky’s cock catch on the rim of his hole and then drag away, teasing them both with it. “Oh, dren that feels good.”

Tony leaned hard on Bucky’s chest and pushed back again, this time sinking down onto Bucky’s cock, just a little, an agonizing, perfect inch.

Now it was Bucky wriggling and gripping the blankets to hold himself down, Bucky whose mouth gaped open as he moaned and gasped for air, Bucky who couldn’t do anything but beg and plead for Tony to move, to take him, to, oh… oh… oh, _frell._ Tony was hot and tight around him, sliding down with smooth, inexorable movements. Bucky’s hands moved, stroked up Tony’s thighs, fingers gripped against his hips, holding him steady. Splayed one hand over Tony’s dick, traced loops and circles over the heated skin.

Finally, _finally_ , Tony was fully seated, head thrown back and throat working as he adjusted to the stretch. It was the sweetest torture Bucky had ever known, to be still and wait for Tony to move.

When Tony did move, it was like nothing else Bucky had ever felt, a hot and slick squeeze that encompassed Bucky’s whole cock at once, a slide that seemed to open him up from the inside and leave him gasping and vulnerable.

Tony pulled nearly off, and then let himself sink back down, much faster this time, and then again, faster still. “Oh, frell, you feel good,” Tony groaned.

Bucky couldn’t get enough of watching Tony, the tiny shifts of expression as they moved together, the flicker and pattern of light against his sweat-slicked skin, the throbbing pulse of the arc-reactor. As Bucky moved, driving up, almost unconsciously mimicking the timing of those flickers, until he was surrounded by Tony, subsumed by him.

“Come on,” he said, urging Tony onward, his hand moving slick over Tony’s cock, stroking him in time with their motions. “Lemme see it, lemme see you. Give it to me.” He kept moving, wanting that heat, wanting that squeeze, the way Tony clenched and shifted on him. So hot and so slick, and so tight around him. He’d never, never felt this way before, he couldn’t get enough of it. He wanted to come, wanted to let himself tip over that height, and at the same time, he wanted it never to stop, to just keep right on going, until they fell apart from exhaustion. “Tony…” His voice spiraled upward and he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.

Tony whined in the back of his throat and sped up, thrusting up hard into Bucky’s grip and then back just as hard onto Bucky’s cock. His mouth fell open and his eyes fell closed, and he whimpered again. “Oh, Bucky. Bucky, I’m-- So good, so good, and I’m so frelling close, I--” The words dried up as his movements became jerky and erratic, and he all but screamed as his climax rushed through him, his body tensing and spasming as he spilled, white and hot, across Bucky’s hand and stomach.

His hands closed on Tony’s ass, tucking him down and fucking up into him with each stroke, pushing himself closer to the edge. Tony was a hot, heavy weight on him, and it was so good, so sweet, and… Bucky threw his head back, baring his throat and groaned. Stuttered and shifted and everything went white behind his eyelids as he was washed over with pleasure. He knew he was talking, praising and cursing and practically crying, petting Tony’s back, his sweat-damp hair, his ass.

When he finally collapsed back onto the thin bunk, he didn’t think he’d ever lain somewhere so comfortable in his whole life. He could stay right there. For eternity.

Tony stayed where he was for several long minutes, then carefully pulled away, wincing. He didn’t go far, though, rearranging himself against Bucky’s side and resting his head in the hollow of Bucky’s shoulder. “We have time for a nap,” he said sleepily.

“Ship’ll wake us,” Bucky said. He nuzzled the top of Tony’s head.

 


	20. Chapter 20

The first time they dropped out of FTL was nerve-wracking, but there were no other ships within range, and no incoming event signatures aside from their own. Tony thought that the use of his arc reactor to power the shuttle’s BEHS drive had altered their departing signature enough for Hydra to be unable to trace it.

Still, every true-space skim was an exercise in tension. And there were a lot of them, because -- their initial bounce off the _Avenger_ ’s event notwithstanding -- a shuttle’s FTL was really only designed for short hops, no more than six to eight hours each.

On the other hand, six to eight hours at a stretch was plenty of time for resting and feeding up on the high-quality meals that Gulmira Station had stocked them with. And sex, of course. They had a _lot_ of sex. Tony wasn’t complaining at all, of course, but it had been a while. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk straight when they finally reached Knowhere.

Bucky told Tony more about his past -- apparently being _correctly_ awakened from even that highly irregular cryosleep had jogged his brain into gear, shaking loose the rest of his memories.

Tony talked a little about Stark Industries and the role they’d played in the dehumanization of enhanciles. Tony was pretty sure his father’s support of certain enhancile restricting laws had been a miscalculation, that his father had wanted enhanciles to be _protected_ , not imprisoned.

Tony had never gotten to have a serious discussion with his father about it, though. Because as soon as Howard had begun to support measures that would give enhanciles back their personhood, Hydra -- or someone like them -- had sent Bucky to mop up the problem.

“It’s only fair, really,” Bucky told him, “that if you’re gonna put that sort of money into enhancing a person, they get somethin’ back for it. Most people who volunteer, like Steve, were sick, dyin’. We signed up, thinkin’ we’d serve five years in th’ War. Wasn’t bad, you know. Five years of your life, and you got to _have_ a life. I was dirt poor, barely makin’ enough money to eat. Th’ test, that paid out a stipend, th’ whole time I was under indenture, an’ that kept my ma and sisters alive, back on Brooklyn. We expected that, it was a fair deal.”

He twisted his flesh fingers around the metal ones. “And then. It stopped bein’ voluntary. Dunno if you heard, ‘bout Harlem… they took prisoners, murderers an’ rapists and people on the death penalty lines an’ injected ‘em with frell only knows what. Huge rioting from the normals, an’ then they got set loose on the population. Abominations, they were called. And they kill for no reason ‘cept the joy of it.”

Tony had heard about Harlem from Bruce. Bruce, the _Avenger’s_ gentle doctor, whose serum turned him into something very like an Abomination. Bruce had known a _lot_ about Harlem. More, Tony suspected, than he’d wanted to share with anyone else.

Tony nodded. “We should’ve gotten out of the enhancement business,” Tony admitted, “but Obie saw a future in it, and Dad never knew when to stop, if he was chasing down an idea. We did treat our volunteers as well as possible. They got housing and salaries just like every other SI employee. Benefits to pay out on death or...” Tony shrugged, knowing it was inadequate. “At least, we did as long as Dad was alive. Obie, though... With Dad gone, Obie started cutting back on costs, starting with enhancements. I didn’t realize it at the time -- my fault; I was too absorbed in my own little world to see what was happening around me. If we fail, if I get shipped back to Obie as an enhancile product, then I’ll be spending the rest of my days in a test lab, I expect.”

Bucky reached over and brushed his fingers over Tony’s shirt where the arc-reactor lay. “Keep wonderin’ what you could do with that. You ran th’ gorram ship off it, you know. Gotta be a better use for a spare battery in your chest.” He smiled, soft and sweet. “Used the pack in my arm once to power a blast door that was sealed closed. Felt it, when I tapped in, if I coulda unravelled more than a few thoughts before my team was gettin’ shot at, I felt… like I coulda run the whole station. Scary. Exhilarating. Never got much chance to experiment with it.”

“We can play around with it some, if you want,” Tony said. “If we get the chance. I had some designs for things to do with my reactor, back at the _Avenger_. And a couple of designs for a new arm for you, too. Just not enough materials to build them. I was going to scavenge for parts the next planet we stopped at, but...” He sighed. “But every time I use the reactor, it puts a little more poison in my body. The shots won’t stop it forever. I have to find a new core for it. Nothing I’ve tried has worked.”

“We’ll figure somethin’ out,” Bucky said, and then Tony had to comfort him, because the fear and sadness in Bucky’s silver-blue eyes was very real and very scary and very much directed at Tony. Tony didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him like that; like they’d rather the universe burned down than spend a single day without his company. And comfort led to messing around and messing around led to them both being so exhausted and overstimulated that worrying just wasn’t _possible_. But after that, Tony was more careful, and Bucky would sometimes look at him with that mute ache.

Finally, the shuttle alerted them. Final drop out of FTL to a port that everyone in the galaxy had heard of.

Knowhere.

The theory was that Knowhere was a stray moon, knocked out of its orbit by some catastrophe in its home solar system. It had been found, abandoned and covered with tunnels and ruins from a long-ago civilization, rich with minerals, flowing with underwater springs. The caverns were so rich with fuel crystals that the planet could have supplied the whole galaxy with power. Of course, that was idealism and not how it had worked out in practice.

In the real world, the moon was ruled by a dozen different mercantile and criminal syndicates that were constantly in a state of near-war. The likes of Hydra or AIM or the Galactic Council had never gained a foothold, because the only thing the families hated more than each other was outside influences, and they’d band together to drive off a concerted attack.

Knowhere’s planetary ion cannons kept the big ships away, and their squadrons of rogue fighter ships made smaller fleets keep their distance.

Bucky dropped them out of FTL with a good view of the moon; brilliant colorful lights setting fire to the skies around it. It was, quite honestly, the second most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen.

“Welcome to Knowhere,” Bucky told him, beaming as if the moon meant something special to him, and that he was showing it off.

“And now the hard part,” Tony said, grimacing. “Tracking down someone who doesn’t want to be found, and hoping that she’s even _still here_.” He wondered if Rhodey had brought the bots and JARVIS to the moon after all. He’d have to find a comm that he could misdirect and bounce until it was safe to call Pepper. If Tony could get his hands on JARVIS, that would make things a lot easier. JARVIS could do the sort of long-range analysis and prediction that a human just couldn’t juggle all the variables for.

Bucky flipped on ship-to comms and spoke in a language Tony didn’t even recognize to someone, securing them a landing berth. “The usual bribes,” Bucky said, pushing away. “An’ I need to see a friend. An old, old friend.” He laughed a little bitter. “If he’s even still functionin’.”

“I see you’ve been here before,” Tony observed drily, packing his gear.

“Not in a while, an’ not on this side of the ‘port as Hydra. These ain’t people who know that bastard, the Winter Soldier. They jus’ know Sergeant Barnes. C’mon. And don’t stare at Timothy. He used to be really self-conscious about it.”

***

“Dum-Fum!” Bucky pounded on the counter on the far side of the docking bay. “You charged up, ya lazy bastard?”

“As I live and breathe,” a man’s voice came from nowhere in particular, and everywhere all at once. “Bucky Barnes.”

“You don’t do neither,” Bucky said. “Come out and say hi to my fella, like you got manners an’ everything.”

The creaky, ancient robot detached itself from a pile of technological rubble. It walked like a puppet with cut strings, half folded over and bent forward in such a manner that made Bucky’s back ache just looking at him. “Sarge,” the robot said, once it got in range. Half its face was almost human, doll-like with porcelain skin. The other half had been shattered, leaving the metal inner workings exposed, the teeth like a rictus grimace, eye glaring at nothing. “Didn’t think I’d see you out this way again.”

“Dum-Dum,” Bucky said, ignoring the robot’s ruined face as best he could. It was harder than he thought, since he’d known the man once. Before. “It’s good to be back. This is Tony--” he made an elaborate gesture in Tony’s direction, “and Tony, this is Timothy Dugan’s LMD. Dum-Dum.”

Tony wasn’t staring at Dum-Dum’s shattered face, but his eyes were fixed on the slightly palsied hand that Dum-Dum extended for him to shake. Tony took the hand, but instead of shaking it, he turned it over to look at the barely-visible skinflap that hid the inner workings. “How long’s your regulator been bad?” he asked.

Dum-Dum made a soft, chuckling sound. “Dunno, what time is it now?” He made a show of looking at the bay’s chrono. “Least half past give a frell, honest. No one comes here, most times, ain’t a thing. Just a few stragglers, from now and again. Nothin’ these old metal bones can’t handle.”

“Really? Because I can probably bypass it, give you at least 85% of the hand’s function back.” Tony seemed to realize he was still holding Dum-Dum’s hand, and released it belatedly. “If you’d be interested.”

“Did you bring me a _mechanic_ , Sarge?” The LMD’s face lit up with avarice.

“That’s my mechanic, you can’t have him,” Bucky said. “But I might lend him out a bit. No gettin’ flirty, you old smoothie. Don’t even let him tempt you, babydoll. He’s been known to break a few good men back in the day.”

“If they don’t got endurance, they ain’t worth dren!” Dum-Dum cracked.

“I’m willing to mechanic,” Tony agreed, looking amused, “and that’s it. Especially in exchange for information. Or access to a decent comm system.”

“Comm system I got. I’ve had these fingers in that pie for a long, long time,” Dum-Dum told Tony. “When they updated to the nanowire system, thirty years back or so? I was right there, working for the man, but laying groundwork for myself. No one’s had need of it in a while, but it’s hardly traceable, and especially not if you don’t know to look for it.”

“You do that, baby. I gotta see another friend, and she probably won’t be happy to see either of us. I’m not gonna put you in that kind of mess.” He drew Tony in for a quick kiss. “If I’m more’n six hours gone, you sleep me as soon as you see me an’ let me explain later, got it? Shouldn’t take that long, but I don’t want to risk anything.”

“Sounds like you’re risking a lot,” Tony pointed out, but he didn’t try to convince Bucky to stay behind, or take him along. “Stay safe. I’ll be here. I’ll fix Dum-Dum’s hand, and make a couple of calls.”

Bucky grabbed a Lift, waited until they were out of sight, and rewired the automated driver. Scrambled its tracker, pushed the auto aside and drove it on manual. It wasn’t long before he was over the Strip, all bright lights and glitter and glam, and then down, through the fog and into the tunnels.

He wasn’t even sure she’d still be there. Almost a decade since the last time he'd seen her on a forbidden holo, and he’d never actually visited her home before. A few accidental run-ins, back when he was running around the galaxy as the Fist of Hydra and she was doing her best to cover her tracks as a rogue agent. He might have killed her, a few times, but no one ever gave the order.

She might have killed him, a few times, but she was nostalgic.

He sent the Lift back to its base to report itself malfunctioning. Told it to take the long way. It might make it back to its garage in the next few cycles. If someone else didn’t find it and ransack it for parts.

He followed instructions that he could never remember her giving him, deep into the tunnels. Finally, outside a door, he tapped on the marker.

The door slid open to admit him.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she greeted him, her red-painted mouth turning up into a smile.

“Agent Carter. Good to see you again.”

 


	21. Chapter 21

Bypassing the bad regulator in Dum-Dum’s wrist was even easier than Tony had thought it would be. The LMD had already subverted most of his control circuits, so it was a fairly basic matter for him to set up the bypass. As Dum-Dum pointed out, he could’ve done it himself if the faulty regulator hadn’t made his hand shake so much.

Still, Dum-Dum was grateful, and that was worth a couple of untraceable comm calls. Tony still bounced the feed halfway across the galaxy and back again, because it wasn’t being paranoid if someone really was out to get you. Also, Pepper would’ve worried more if the call came through clear and without delays.

“Tony?” she gasped as it connected. “Oh, thank the void. You’ve been off-grid for almost two weeks!”

“Yeah, I ran into some difficulties,” Tony said. “Are you... are those _tears_?”

“Tears of joy,” she sniffed. “I hate job hunting.”

Tony was absurdly warmed by her affection. “What’s the news?” he asked. “I heard Obie’s set up some kind of enhancile database?”

Pepper grimaced. “It’s terrible, Tony. He’s about two steps from trying to make _all_ humans register.”

“That would be catastrophic,” Tony said. “What’s his end game?”

“I don’t know,” Pepper said. “It’s like he’s gone _mad_. I’m glad we got JARVIS offline when we did; he’s definitely taking over your house.”

“Speaking of JARVIS -- where’s Rhodey? Did you send him on that trip, or postpone things because I went off-grid?”

“No, he’s there, waiting for my call. Meet him at Gracie’s tomorrow at noon. It’s a seedy little bar. Take a gun. In fact, take two.”

“Thanks, Pep,” Tony said. “You’re absolutely the best.”

“I know,” she said, and cut the comm.

It was getting pretty close to Bucky’s six hours, and Tony wasn’t ashamed to admit he was getting pretty drenning nervous when a ratty looking transport pulled into the bay. The engine underneath the rusted exterior purred, not quite concealing the easily maneuverable high altitude capable vehicle hiding underneath.

The hatch opened and…

Tony’s brain locked up.

It was definitely Bucky, that tangle of lucious brown hair was impossible to disguise, spilled around his face the way it was.

But he was wearing what looked like tactical armor in a rich black, covered in leather straps and buckles that held a number of weapon-holsters. A long rifle was strapped to his back, and Tony counted three pistols, a hideaway, and at least a half dozen knives that he could see. One sleeve was missing, showing off that metal arm -- probably because tight-fitting cloth would get hung up in the plates -- but the red star had been scrubbed off roughly, showing a round, dull patch on his shoulder. He wore a pair of HUD goggles that gave him a vaguely insectoid appearance and a filtration mask meant for close in, toxin heavy combat.

And the way he _walked_. Bucky had always had a confident stride that drew attention to his shapely body, but in that outfit, he strutted. Each step grabbed the gaze and directed it to those killer thighs and mobile, lithe hips. He walked like he had someone to kill. Or kiss. And the person at the end of that strut probably didn’t care which one it was.

“Hnnnngggh,” Tony said intelligently, and leaned against Dum-Dum’s counter to hide the way his knees had suddenly gone weak. “Tell me that’s really you in there, hot stuff.”

Bucky flipped off the HUD goggles, tucking the strap into his hair, and ripped off the mask. “Old gear, left it here a while ago. Close your mouth, babydoll, you’re droolin’ and I got a surprise for you.”

“This isn’t enough?” Tony wondered.

“Anthony, duckling!” a woman’s voice called, and from around the other side of the car came a figure in a blue coat with a brilliant red hat. “It is, it really is you, I thought our Sergeant Barnes’ brain had finally given up the ghost, but, oh, goodness, it is delightful to see you again.”  

“Aunt _Peggy?_ ” Tony’s voice climbed high up into the squeak range. “What-- How-- Why--” Bewildered he accepted and returned her fond embrace. “What are you doing here?”

“Meddling, darling,” she told him. “That’s what I do. Interfered with _his_ work, a few times. He couldn’t bring himself to kill me. I returned the favor. But we’ve butted heads a few times in the last two decades or more, haven’t we?”

Bucky turned all bashful and blushing again. “Yes, ma’am, we surely did. Never met anyone more hard-headed than this dame. Been a thorn in Hydra’s side since SSR was disbanded.”

“Yes, well, someone had to stop them,” Peggy Carter said. She didn’t look much older than she had the last time Tony had seen her, maybe three years before his father had been killed. They’d argued then, about Inhuman Rights, and Howard had accused her of being sentimental over an old flame. Peggy had slapped him hard enough to leave a bruise, and hadn’t been back.

“It’s great to see you,” Tony said. “Did Bucky tell you what we’re doing on Knowhere?”

“Yes, and I might be able to help you,” Peggy said. “I believe I might have some knowledge of the girl’s whereabouts. I cannot do much more than that, however. I’ve been running an underground railroad for enhanciles, and I dare not endanger my hideaways until the universe is a safer place. I’m sure you understand.”

“Anything you can do to help would be great,” Tony said sincerely. Without even a clue, he had a whole planet to scour. “Please tell me she’s still on-planet.”

“It’s impossible to say with any surety, but she certainly was a few days ago,” Peggy said. “I wanted to see you for myself before I agreed to help. This one, well, he says he’s better, but I’ve seen him at his worst.” She gave Bucky a side glance that spoke volumes. “If you need refuge, Anthony--” she leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Follow rumors for Miss Worthy. They’ll get back to me.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll remember that. Thank you, Aunt Peggy.”

Bucky smiled, a little sad. “Pegs…” he said. “ _He’s_ still alive. I’ve seen him. Tony’s seen him.”

“James, if you call me that again, I shall rip that arm of yours straight off and beat you with it,” Peggy told him, pertly.

Tony frowned at Bucky. “Who have I seen?”

“The Captain,” Peggy responded. “And it does not matter. That was over and done with long before Anthony was even born. I am not the same woman he knew.”

“The Cap-- You mean _Steve?_ ” Tony hissed. “How in the frell did I end up on the _one ship_ full of people from our pasts that I didn’t even _know_?”

“I have not yet seen so much that I do not believe that there is some small force for good left in the universe,” Peggy said. “Perhaps it guided you to where you might do the most good.”

Tony snorted. “Some good that did,” he muttered. “Steve just about committed summary execution when he found out who I was.”

“And yet, here you stand,” Peggy told him. “Far from friendless, with two very important allies. And, should the Captain come here, I’ve no doubt I can direct him to far more useful activities. Shut up, James.”

Bucky held his hands out. “I didn’t say nothin’.”

“And nothing, indeed, is what you should continue to say,” Peggy sassed. “I shall make a few enquiries and return to you with what news I can discover. Eventually, all enhanciles on Knowhere come through my network. I am, darling, very sorry that you… ended up that way. It was not what should have been.”

“It’s not what I would have chosen,” Tony admitted. “But it’s made me a better person.”

“Chin up, duckling,” Peggy said, then kissed him on both cheeks. “Try to stay out of trouble. I know, you cannot avoid it, but do not, at least, seek out extra trouble. I’m getting old and I should hate to have to mourn you.”

“You don’t look a day over ninety,” Bucky told her, sincerely.

She stopped, midway back to her vehicle, to throw an exceptionally rude hand gesture in his direction.

“Frell, I love her,” Tony said, grinning. Somehow, everything seemed less bleak than it had a few hours ago. He was going to get to see Rhodey tomorrow, and his Aunt Peggy was going to use her information network to help him find Maya. Maybe, just maybe, luck was smiling on them, however briefly.

***

The seedy little casino and wet-shop where Tony’s contact was meeting them oozed with some of the worst slime Bucky had encountered in a while. No policy in place for weapons and Bucky thought he might be underarmed. Tony was naked as far as that went; his stunners would probably only tickle some of the assholes that were here.

“Your friend is either very brave, or exceptionally rash,” Bucky said in an undertone. Trying to keep his eyes on everyone, to see if anyone was paying particular attention to them, to Tony, was terrifying. He was going to miss something and Tony was going to end up bleeding for it. Bucky’s skin was crawling, and it probably wasn’t entirely because of the local pest population.

“Relax, would you?” Tony said, a casual, easy-going tone that was belied by the tense set of his shoulders. “Rhodey wouldn’t steer me wrong.” His eyes swept the crowd with a different agenda than Bucky’s. “There he is! Come on!” Tony started to make his way through the room.

Tony’s friend was a tall, thin man with wiry muscle tone, a broad, flat nose, a wide smile, and a salt-and-pepper beard. He also had a squat, ugly hat perched on top of his head, and was bundled in an MIT sweatshirt, like he was cold.

Tony reached the man’s table and immediately swooped in on him for an enthusiastic hug. “Snugglebear!”

“Tones,” the man said, hanging on to Tony as if for dear life. “You asshole. Disappearing like that. Next time, you come to me, when you got problems, don’t go flitting off like you think you can fix everything through sheer force of terrible personality.”

The man eyed Bucky suspiciously, those brown eyes hard and aggressive.

“Don’t be mad, platypus; I had my reasons. This is Bucky. Bucky, this is Rhodey, my best friend.”

There was an itch at the base of Bucky’s spine when Rhodey looked at him. _Familiar_ , somehow. “Sir,” Bucky said, straightening up as if preparing for inspection.

“What’s with this guy, Tones? Ain’t you in enough trouble without picking up strays?”

Bucky clamped his teeth down on a snarl.

“He’s not a stray, Rhodey. He’s saved my life at least half a dozen times. Maybe more. He’s special. Stop circling him like a feral dog.” Tony shoved at his friend playfully, or maybe just a little seriously. “Come on, tell me where you’ve stashed my babies.”

Rhodey handed over a small datastick. “Here’s J. Well, not all of him, but at his instructions, we got him a backup server, up and running. That’ll put you through to him, and he can self-replicate to your portable. You won’t believe what he had me do. Your boy’s running around in three high tech courier ships, keeping on the move to stay out of hands. He can meet up with you in one, and still be snug as a bug in the other two.”

Tony beamed proudly. “That’s my boy. What about the others?”

“U and Butterfingers are onboard the _War Machine_ , for your personal use if you want it,” Rhodey told him, still eyeing Bucky suspiciously, like he shouldn’t be saying anything around Bucky at all, except that he didn’t want to upset his friend. Bucky could practically taste the waves of distrust coming off the man. “DUM-E’s with me. Refused, categorically, to the point of setting things on _fire_ , man, to wait patiently with the others. He’s back at my hostel, and only there because I can’t roll him across these streets without a payloader.”

“DUM-E always sets things on fire,” Tony said, waving a hand negligently. “You’re spoiling him.”

“He was crying,” Rhodey said. “It was pitiful.”

“You’re such a squishy marshmallow, down inside,” Tony said, grinning. He clapped a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder.

“I am put-upon and you take shameful advantage of my generous nature,” Rhodey clarified.

“To- _may_ -to, to- _mah_ -to,” Tony said. “It’s the rock-solid foundation of our friendship, going back many years!” Tony sobered some. “How long can you stick around? I’m not particularly _expecting_ trouble, but I’m not _not_ expecting any, either.”

“He’s expecting trouble,” Bucky said, absently. “If he’s not, he’s an idiot. There’s trouble. An extra hand wouldn’t be unnecessary.”

“You are a terrible negotiator,” Tony told Bucky.

“Figure I can stay around for a bit,” Rhodey said. “I had a ton of leave stored up, it’s one of those use it or lose it deals. No one expects me on a base for another month.”

“He’s supposed to be your friend,” Bucky said. “Which means you may as well get him shot at sooner rather than later.”

“Tones,” Rhodey said. “You got a ton of explaining to do. But let’s go see to your drenning high school project reject before he burns my hotel down.”

 


	22. Chapter 22

“A robot?” Bucky was staring at DUM-E, who had been showing off all his tricks, handing Tony a ball, a water bottle, and the fire extinguisher before turning his attention to the newcomer. “We crossed half the galaxy with Hydra crawling right up our asses for a robot?”

“Among other things,” Tony pointed out. “Including two more robots, slightly more coordinated than this one, but not much. And my best AI system. And don’t forget Maya is hopefully still on-planet. So we didn’t _just_ come for DUM-E.”

Rhodey was standing by the door with his arms crossed over his chest. “He absolutely _would_ have come all this way just for DUM-E, though,” he informed Bucky.

“I know how to prioritize,” Tony said in an impossibly wounded tone that was somewhat spoiled by the robot playing hide-and-seek under Tony’s arm.

“Sure,” Rhodey said, “but you _don’t_.”

“If it’s important to you, doll, it’s important to me,” Bucky said. “Jus’ trying to figure how we’re gonna get it on the shuttle.”

Rhodey made a deep, throaty rumble. “Doll.” That came out flat. “Tony, what is going on with you? Where’s your head at?”

“My head is right where it’s supposed to be,” Tony said firmly. “I’m not telling you the whole story here unless you’ve got military-grade jammers on you, because we’ve got Hydra on our tails, but all evidence to the contrary, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“That’s a load,” Bucky said. “You’ve been playing this whole thing by a wing, prayer and your abundant good looks since we started. I’ll grant, th’ odds are better for you than most.” He glanced at Rhodey like he was expecting to find an ally. “He always like this?”

“Most of the time,” Rhodey said. “Other times, he’s downright stubborn and ornery.”

“Honeybear, you wound me,” Tony said. He looked at DUM-E. “At least you love me.”

DUM-E lifted the fire extinguisher and liberally doused Tony in suppressant.

Over the last few weeks, Tony had seen Bucky smile a lot, heard him chuckle a few times, and once or twice, outright laugh. This… was not something he’d seen before. Bucky started with a few hastily covered up snorts, then it leaped past any control he had until the man was bent over, hands on his knees, laughing so hard he was wheezing on the inhale, until Rhodey was smirking right along with him, and Tony felt the corners of his own mouth strain not to turn up.

“All right, now we’ve all had our fun,” Tony said, mock-sighing. “Cupcake, loan me your shower and some clean clothes -- I think my current ensemble would attract attention even on Knowhere’s streets -- and then we’ll head over to the _War Machine_ for some plain talk. Okay?”

DUM-E made a mournful beep and rested its claw on Tony’s shoulder.

“You, I’m going to donate to the first scrap heap we see on the way back to the port,” Tony told the robot.

“Gotcha,” Rhodey said. “You’re gonna be swimming in my clothes. You should give some consideration to getting taller.”

“Careful, or I’m donating you along with the junkpile, here.”

 _War Machine_ was a gorgeous ship, silvery grey and newer than anything Tony’d seen in a while. Also, self-armed. When they got to the bay where she was housed, there was currently a stand off in progress between the ship and a pack of scavengers that kept trying to get in and shut down the weapons long enough to steal something off the ship.

“Good afternoon, Sir,” JARVIS said, as soon as they came in range. “If you don’t mind, please step around to the left, so I do not smear blood on you when I am forced to shoot these hooligans.”

“You’ve gotten bloodthirsty in my absence, J,” Tony observed, but he did angle to the left.

Said hooligans didn’t seem to be too worried about an AI -- there were restrictions in place that kept most computer systems from ordering an execute without a human behind them -- but when Bucky put his facemask on and drew the long rifle, that seemed to convince them that they might be at some risk, and they scattered, yelling insults and swears.

“My thanks,” JARVIS said. “They were most troublesome. Welcome aboard, sir.”

“Thanks, JARVIS. Bucky, meet JARVIS, my personal AI and assistant. JARVIS, this is Bucky. We’re giving him access level four and registering him as a pilot, so don’t fry him if he sits on the hotseat.”

Two more robots, similar to DUM-E but subtly different in shape, came rolling up the corridor, claw arms waving with either enthusiasm or menace. It was hard to tell. Tony greeted them like long-lost friends, though, patting their struts and running a proprietary hand down their main arms.

“You are terrifying,” Bucky said. “No wonder you didn’t blink when I introduced you to Dum-Dum.”

“If you would, Mr. Bucky, please remove your eyepiece, so I can perform a retinal scan.”

“Jus’ Bucky,” Bucky said. “Or Sergeant Barnes, if you’re feelin’ fancy.”

“Of course, Sergeant,” JARVIS said. “I have certain protocol packages installed. To make up, I believe, for Mr. Stark’s basic lack of manners.”

“I have manners,” Tony said. “I think I shoved them under the bed when I was about nine, but I _have_ them.”

“Well, now Mr. Stane has them, then,” JARVIS said. “And I should very much like to get them back, Sir. This particular function gives me more physical form than I am truly comfortable with. I find it very… confining, I must say.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Tony assured the AI, “we’ll have you back to being an incorporeal and near-omniscient being as soon as we can manage it.” He waved at Rhodey and Bucky. “Let’s go find a secured conference room and I’ll explain everything.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

***

Rhodey was sneaky and clever and annoying and persistent. And those were only some of his good qualities. Rather than try to slip in to the ship’s cabin that Tony was sharing with Bucky, risk waking them both up, and then not being able to have a private conversation, Rhodey just went in to the engine room and test-cycled the arc-reactor.

Tony went from sound asleep to awake with a dull aching thud in his chest. Nothing that would have woken anyone else. Most people, even enhanciles, never noticed things like the air circulating system kicking in, or the random system’s tests that fluttered all around them. Little background noises.

It took a moment for Tony’s brain to come online and identify the coconut and old pennies taste in the back of his throat, but once he did -- there was no reason for the arc-reactor to self-test three hours into first shift, when sane people (and that sometimes included Tony) usually slept.

He sighed and sat up. Bucky made a quiet sound, and Tony kissed him gently. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “Everything’s okay.” He waited for Bucky to snuggle back down into the blankets and slip back into dreamless sleep. Resentful that he couldn’t curl back down into Bucky’s arms, Tony dragged on his pants and went to find Rhodey.

“The middle of the frelling night?” he complained when he walked into the engine room. “You could’ve just said, hey, can we have a private conversation?”

“Given who you’re traveling with,” Rhodey said, leaning back against the arc-reactor casing. “Hmmm. Let’s see. How about, ‘no.’” The reactor in Tony’s chest was humming happily along with its bigger, badder cousin, an ease on the strain. It was… nice, actually. The newer models were set up so the vibrations were soothing to human nerves, rather than the vague jangle that had been part of the _Avenger’s_ systems.

Tony rolled his eyes at Rhodey. “I can tell you’re not going to be happy until you’ve had your say,” he said. “Go on, get it all out of your system.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the engine casing.

“Tones, I love you like a brother, you know that, right? And Mama would just about skin me alive if I let anything happen to you,” Rhodey started, scratching at the salt and pepper beard he’d grown. “But people ain’t your strong point. This late in the game, what are you even doing, bringing another player in?”

“We need all the help we can get,” Tony pointed out. “Bucky is enhanced, with everything that comes with that, and he’s got people-tracking skills and a huge grudge against Hydra. He wants to help us.”

“And you’re bedding him,” Rhodey said. “This is not the time for _that_ to be making decisions either.”

“I’m not thinking with my dick,” Tony shot back. “He was in this before we wound up in bed.”

“If even half of what Pepper suspects is true about this guy, Tony,” Rhodey said, and he really was worried, not just being all big-brother-y because it suited him. “Then I’m just wondering how much of that was your idea at all. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy, maybe this iteration of him really cares about you. He may not even know himself that he’s gonna turn on you, but those files you sent her from that dead Hydra ship had her frantic.”

“Pepper didn’t have all the finer details, platypus” Tony said. “He knows I was supposed to be his next target, but he’s on my side, now. _Our_ side.”

“Tony,” Rhodey said, “I know you’ve run the numbers because it’s what you do. How bad is it? How much of a risk does he pose. I want you to be safe, I want you to be sane. Are you pushing back on me about this because you believe it, or because you know I’m right?”

Tony crossed the small room to put a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder. “I know you worry about me, Rhodey. That’s fair. I know I do a lot of stupid dren. But he’s had my life in his hands a dozen times already. If he hasn’t already taken advantage of that, then what the frell would he be waiting for? What’s the long game, there? It’s a risk, sure. But not nearly as much of a risk as trying to do this without him.”

“If you turn out to be wrong, you are totally owing me your Shelby,” Rhodey told him. “Not _a_ Shelby, neither, I want yours. The one you _own_ , your name on it, and I’m gonna get a new plate for it that says Stark Raving Lunatic and drive it around to all your functions and beep the horn at you.”

They both knew that if Tony was wrong, he would never be going to another function at all.

***

Bucky rolled over, hand out in the sheets. The bunks aboard _War Machine_ were at least twice the size of the one he and Tony had been sharing in the shuttle, but surely his fingertips should have found his lover by now?

He sat up. The sheets were rumpled and cool. No Tony in the bed. No Tony in the room, tapping at his portable. He vaguely remembered Tony kissing his hair in the blackness of sleep shift, a soothing murmur.

Strange how fast a body could get used to things. Bucky was used to waking up with a warm, lithe body pressed against his. Bucky shifted and swung his legs out of the bed, cool air prickling at his bare skin.

Even as he sat up, the hatch opened and Tony slipped in. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said. He came to stand by the bunk, reaching out to touch Bucky’s arm. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Yeah, there was this Tony-shaped hole in the bed,” Bucky said, giving Tony a soft smile, fingers going to that tangle of dark curls that did amazing corkscrews while Tony was sleeping.

“Sorry,” Tony said, folding down onto the bunk next to Bucky and leaning into his side. “Rhodey wanted to talk.”

A worm of worry squirmed around in Bucky’s stomach. “Good chat with your friend,” he suggested. He couldn’t help letting Tony’s hair curl around his fingers, tugging it out light to its full length and watching it snap back. It was stupidly adorable.

“Mm,” Tony hedged. “He’s worried. He’s a worrier.”

“He should be,” Bucky said. “If there’s a position of greater danger in th’ immediate universe than th’ one we’re in, I don’t really want to know about it. Someone ought to worry ‘bout you. Don’t seem to me like you’re very good at doin’ it yourself.”

“That might be true,” Tony allowed. “And now I have both of you to worry about me, so I don’t need to.”

“Yeah, take advantage of my weakness, go right ahead, there,” Bucky said. He pressed his lips to the top of Tony’s head. “Reckless, crazy, genius.”

“Only a few of my more endearing qualities,” Tony said, smiling. He stretched out, offering Bucky a hand. “Come back to bed?”

Bucky gave him a predatory smirk. “I ain’t th’ least bit sleepy, fair warning,” he told Tony, crawling toward him with intent.

“Good. I’m not, either.” Tony watched Bucky’s approach with interest, lifting his head for a kiss as soon as Bucky came close enough to tempt.

Bucky pulled Tony into an embrace, rolling them together on the bed until he was laying half on Tony’s chest, staring down into Tony’s whiskey brown eyes. “You beautiful man,” Bucky told him, earnestly.

“We really need to get you a mirror,” Tony said. He kissed Bucky, teasing at the corner of Bucky’s mouth, hands twining in Bucky’s hair.

That was just ridiculous; why would Bucky want to look at himself when he could drink his fill of Tony? He was just getting ready to say so, if he could pull his mouth away from its exploration of Tony’s jaw long enough to speak, when there was a faint hiss, crackle and--

“Forgive the intrusion, Sir,” JARVIS said.

Bucky jerked back, startled. Bumped his head against the interior wall near the sleeping alcove. “ _Frell_! What…Ow.”

Tony didn’t seem phased at all, though he did pout a little. “What is it, J?”

“Agent Carter wished to deliver a message, Sir, with all due haste. The woman you seek, Maya Hanson, was spotted only moments ago at an eatery. According to our information, the enhancements require an extraordinary caloric intake. She will quite likely be that this location for only another hour, but it is the closest to a schedule she has.”

Tony sat up quickly and reached for his shirt. “Can we get there in time? Tell Rhodey to suit up.”

“If nothing untoward happens, I believe so, Sir.” A small hatch popped open in the wall. “Avail yourself of a comm unit, Sir, and I will guide you through any traffic conditions or disturbances.”

Bucky sighed. Well, he wasn’t getting any of that sort of action now. He dragged himself out of the bed, still rubbing at the back of his skull, and started pulling on his gear.

Tony snatched up a comm unit and tossed it to Bucky before grabbing another for his own use. He pulled on his clothes with all speed, and paused only long enough to kiss Bucky firmly on the mouth. “Make it up to you later, snowflake,” he promised.

 


	23. Chapter 23

JARVIS had negotiated communications with more than half the moon’s systems. A Lift was awaiting them as soon as they were out of the hanger, zipping away without needing any instruction. JARVIS was running the Lift, the air-traffic control, street and skyway cams, as well as diverting local “law enforcement” (so-called, actually loosely-organized gangs and tollers who patrolled the city, not to keep anyone safe, but for an opportunity to line their own pockets). JARVIS also deposited appropriate bribes that allowed the Lift to travel from one district to the next.

Knowhere was a riot of color, people, vehicles, and animals. Natural wildlife that had adapted to the vast urban sprawl moved easily among the people, long noses poking into trash receptacles. A migratory flying mammal flock caused the longest delay, finally driven away from blocking their progress when JARVIS found a high pitched sound to flood their sonar organs and send them scurrying for quieter areas.

They had less than seven minutes left on JARVIS’s projected hour before the Lift put them down outside of a high-rise vendatorium. Food sellers lined dozens of floors; the smell was pungent, rich, nearly overwhelming.

“Third floor, take the south elevator,” JARVIS told them. “If I may suggest, sir, approach her first as a friendly. Colonel Rhodes and Sergeant Barnes can serve was observation and backup. Miss Hanson knows you, sir, and she may be persuaded to be reasonable.”

“Good idea,” Tony said. “You boys on board with that?” He was already striding toward the elevator bank.

“I’m on eyes, got it,” Bucky said. He snagged Tony for one last, hard kiss, and then practically vanished, melting into the crowd. He shouldn’t have been able to do that, Tony thought, resentfully. There was nothing _concealing_ or _subtle_ about the armor he was wearing.

“Try not to make her feel closed in, Tones,” Rhodey told him. “She gets explosive when she’s nervous.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the results,” Tony said. “I’m not eager to make her upset.” He climbed into the south elevator and hit the third floor button.

Maya didn’t look much different from the last time Tony had seen her: dark hair that framed an intelligent, sweet face, tall and lean. And at the same time, she looked desperately changed: her hair was chopped short, she wore leathers of indeterminate age that were torn and scuffed. She had an air of watchfulness to her that she’d never had before. Something about her broadcast danger to those around her; even in the crowded venue, people were leaving space, an impenetrable bubble around her. She ate with determination, not tasting the food. It seemed to only be fuel, and she never stopped looking around.

Tony hadn’t even gotten halfway across the space before her gaze lit on him. Her attention narrowed to his face, and then she put her hand on the table, as if she displaying she carried a no weapon. Except Tony knew the truth. She didn’t need a weapon; she was one.

Tony stepped forward more cautiously, watching her for any sign of unease, and stopped well out of arm’s reach. “You’re looking well,” he said. “You’re a hard woman to find.”

“You’re a hard man to avoid,” Maya said. “The stalker thing, it’s cute, Tony. You didn’t bring me flowers?”

“Brought you something else,” Tony said. “A chance at freedom. Aren’t you tired of running, Maya?”

She looked down at her hands, knuckles glinting a little golden. “I don’t get tired anymore, Tony,” she said. “You saw to that, didn’t you? I don’t get tired, I don’t get hurt. I do get angry, though.” She tipped her head to one side. “Sit down and pass the time with me? It’s a far cry from morning kisses and you’ll always care about me, isn’t it?”

Tony sat opposite her, being careful to keep his hands visible. “I do care about you,” he said. “I want you to be able to stop running. I want you to be able to go home.”

“Yeah, I’d like that, too,” she said. “I had a little garden, you know. Rare plants and flowers. Ferns. It was nice.” She swallowed hard. “They took it. Burned it down. Everything burns now, if you get it hot enough.”

Maya spread her fingers, watching the orange and glitter move under her skin. “I’m getting better at it. Keeping it inside. But what are we gonna do, Tony? I’m a weapon. That’s all anyone will ever see again.”

“You’re so much more than that,” Tony said. “I think, you and I, working together, we can pull its teeth. Make it safe. A healing product rather than a destructive one.”

“Yeah?” She looked up at him, her eyes welling with tears. “Yeah, you think that? Willing to bet your life on it, that I can be more than a ticking time bomb?” She extended a hand, palm up, and Tony could see the Extremis swimming in her blood like embers in the wind. “No one’s touched me, not since the first time. Everyone’s terrified. They call me the phoenix, a miracle, but it’s so dark, sometimes. I don’t see miracles. I see cages and test tubes and doctors and _reports_.”

Tony acted on instinct, reaching out to lay his hand over hers. _Humans, even altered ones, they’re meant to touch each other._ It was warmer than a normal human’s hand, but not scalding. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I think we can fix it, and I think we can change things for the better. For all enhanciles. If you’ll help.”

Maya picked his hand up, pressed it against her cheek, closing her eyes. “You have no idea how that feels,” she said. “You planning to lead a rebellion? Start a civil war? They’ll never let us go, you know that.” She scoffed. “They’ve tried to kill you twice now, you know. I stopped the last attempt. Left them cinders in space. Felt good to let go like that. It’s hard, isn’t it? Not being what they want us to be, when it just feels so _good_ to be. It’s addicting.”

“I know. I saw what you left behind,” Tony said. “You saved me, that time. If they’d gotten where they were going, I’d almost certainly be dead now. Thank you for that.” He cupped her cheek, stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. “I want to take it to the Galactic Council,” he told her. “I want to tell them: this is a gift you can have, but it only works if enhanciles can be free.”

“There’s… just. One problem,” Maya said, and she pressed her lips to the palm of his hand; hot enough to singe his skin.

“We can fix that,” Tony said. “Turn it off. I’m sure of it.”

“And can you fix _that_?” Her eyes flicked from point to point, focusing and then moving again, and focusing. “We’re surrounded. I count at least twenty. How many can you kill? How many casualties are you willing to accept?”

“Who are they?” Tony asked. He forced himself not to look, not to give them away, but it was hard.

“Hydra,” Maya said. “They’re probably here for me, but they’ll take a two-for-one. Frell me dead, did you lead them right to me?” Her voice spiralled up in a furious whisper.

“Dren, I thought we’d lost them,” Tony growled. “JARVIS, got an exit route for us?”

“I have taken the liberty of appropriating the northern elevator for your personal use. Proceed. Hydra will not hesitate to take hostages or kill innocents. Your cover will be low, but the chance of collateral damage is reduced by thirty-one percent.”

“Take my hand,” Tony said, offering. “We’re going to walk out of here slow and casual.”

“If we get out of this, I’m going to marry you just so that I can divorce you for being an idiot,” Maya said. She smiled tightly and gripped Tony’s fingers. She was heating up, her hand like a spoon that had been resting near a hot stove. “Let’s go.”

“Colonel Rhodes has you covered from the elevator, Sir, and the Sergeant is clearing a landing site on the roof. He is taking fire, but currently is uninjured.”

“Thanks, J.” He led Maya to the north elevator. The doors closed behind them and it began to rise even before Tony had pressed the button.

“What happened to _Don’t worry so much, sourpuss_?” Rhodey demanded. “Or _I’ve got it all planned out_?”

“It’s a fluid plan,” Tony said. “The variables are always changing. Maya, Colonel Rhodes.”

The elevator came to an abrupt halt and a tool jammed into the opening, prying at the doors. They’d barely gotten in inch apart when someone stuffed the muzzle of a gun in the opening, firing indiscriminately.

“Let go!” Maya yelled, shaking her hand free. “Get back!” Her hand was glowing as orange as molten steel and she reached up to grasp the muzzle, turning the gunmetal into slag with a single touch. The floor under her sizzled and she sank a few inches before staggering back and away. Steam rose off her skin, poured out of her mouth, dotted her eyelashes.

“Frell me,” Tony said. “That’s so cool.”

“Cool is _not_ the word I’d choose,” Rhodey shot back. “JARVIS, let’s go, man!”

“One moment, Colonel Rhodes,” JARVIS said, then the elevator moved again, a lot less stable than it had been. “Top floor in twelve seconds. There are four combatants in the hall. You will need to get past them to the stairs on the left.”

“I have it, Tony,” Maya said. She looked strangely demonic, and yet utterly tranquil; her eyes were molten swirls of flame. “Stay in the elevator until I give the all clear. Don’t look.”

“Don’t you know th’ story about Sodom and Gamorrah? Tony’s gonna be Lot’s wife all over the place. _Don’t look_ , are you crazy?” Rhodey said. He checked his weapon, pressed his back against the wall next to the door.

“Sanity is not a requirement in an enhancile subject,” Maya said. The elevator door pinged, but stuck and Maya melted her way through it, leaving the metal glowing, dripping, and sagging.

The gunfire was ridiculously loud.

“Tony, get down, get the frell down!”

Tony dropped to the floor and crawled back behind the elevator walls, letting them serve as cover.

The gunfire stopped. A very long, pregnant pause, and then yelling, swearing, exclamations of disbelief. A very soft _whoosh_ , like a match being dropped on accelerant.

The screams didn’t last very long at all.

“You can come up now.”

***

It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be, to fall into mission-mode. Bucky shook his head, covered his face with the protective mask and the tactical HUD glasses. Real time data streamed to him, provided by JARVIS: traffic cams, surveillance, everything and anything, distilled through one of the most advanced weapons and tactical computers ever, and it was all the size of a pair of glasses.

Tony had barely made contact with the mark -- and kept _touching_ her, he noted with a low growl -- when Bucky saw the first member of Strike Team Delta.

Two steps and Bucky vanished behind a set of vending machines, waited.

A quick jerk, grab, and he twisted. He crushed the man’s throat, silencing him. Choked, garbled sounds came from his mouth, barely a whisper under the din of shoppers and diners and announcements. Didn’t matter, they were all biolinked to Hydra’s tactical computer. As soon as his lifesigns flickered, they’d know.

There wasn’t anything to be done. He’d have to lead them off.

Bucky dashed down a maintenance corridor, firing once to get their attention. Hydra would give chase, hopefully giving them enough time to make an escape. Colonel Rhodes would make sure Tony got away, wouldn’t he?

“JARVIS, tell Tony--” Bucky broke off; he didn’t know what the frell to tell Tony. That Bucky loved him? That he was going to do his best to keep Hydra away? He dodged a silenced dart -- they were aiming to capture, not kill. Bucky didn’t have that restriction. He rolled, turned, snatching one of the pistols out of his belt. Returned fire. He was _not_ aiming to take prisoners.

A soft thump as the EMP disruptor fired.

Bucky’s arm was shielded. The gun was shielded. JARVIS’s communicator was fried. “Takin’ ‘em to the roof,” Bucky yelled, hoping that JARVIS could hear him from any nearby cameras that hadn’t gotten caught in the blast.

Strike Team Delta should have known better than to follow the Winter Soldier into a frelling stairwell. Didn’t they know how he’d trained? He picked off three before they began to use caution in coming through the door.

He used the metal hand as a shield, blocking a spray of gunfire aimed at his face. Bullets peppered his tac-suit, the impact knocking him backward. One tore through a seam; hot blood gushed down from his throat. Not bad; it would heal in a matter of minutes.

If he had minutes.

_Excuse me, Sergeant._ The font, unrecognized, came scrawling across the HUD display. _It is JARVIS. The others are on their way from the north elevator. Meet them at the staircase. I have illuminated a path._

“Nice to have backup, even if you’re hijacking my gear,” Bucky said. He finished climbing the stairs. Took another bullet in the back of his left thigh. A weakness in the material made for flexibility. “Frell!” Turned and fired. The corpse fell, blocked the door. Thank the stars for small frelling favors.

He got to the roof, followed JARVIS’s directions. The AI kept him moving, pointed out where he had blind spots. It was like having his own tactical team. Bucky could get used to it.

The north stairs door opened and Tony and Rhodey staggered out. There were hostiles still in the area. Bucky raised his long rifle to give them cover.

Tony did a visual sweep as they came out onto the roof, and grinned when he saw Bucky. Just behind him, Rhodey looked less happy, face tight with concentration. Tony said something to Rhodey that Bucky didn’t catch, and Rhodey scowled, then shrugged.

_There_!

Bucky raised the rifle, narrowing the shot. He was right behind Tony. There was no time to shout a warning, no time for anything except to act.

Things happened very fast.

Rhodey lunged forward, as if to shove Tony aside. Bucky lined up the shot and fired, not even bothering to check his aim; he knew it was good. A dark blur of orange and yellow raced across the open rooftop, screaming a demon’s warcry.

“Soldat,” a voice said, and Bucky shuddered, dropping his guard. “Longing.”

A hand grabbed his metal wrist, and he turned, looking into the face of fear. A woman’s face, barely recognizable.

Her hand was burning.

The soldier just stood there, locked in the beginning of the command cycle.

His hand was _burning_.

“Rusted.”

He was screaming and he didn’t know why. Pain raced up his arm, sensors pinged and alarms chimed in his head. Core temperature at critical.

“Furnace. Finish the mission, soldier.”

He looked for the source of the words. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, rich sybaritic mouth. Cruel eyes.

Someone was screaming.

A familiar voice was screaming.

(Tony… _was screaming._ )

Pain. Agony. He couldn’t close his hand, couldn’t pull away. The fingers went offline. His wrist was orange and dripping and he didn’t understand.

“Daybreak. Kill him, soldier!”

The soldier raised the pistol in his right hand. Ignored the woman who was burning his arm off at the shoulder.

The screaming stopped. The man (Tony) looked directly at the soldier, staring down the barrel of the soldier’s pistol to meet the soldier’s gaze. The man’s eyes were watering. He took another breath to scream again, and this time the soldier heard the word: “ _Sputnik!”_

Then the soldier didn’t hear anything.

 


	24. Chapter 24

“I told you he’d be useful,” Tony told Rhodey as they spilled out onto the roof.

“Save it for the aftermath,” Rhodey snapped, weapon out and held professionally low, finger ghosting alongside the trigger.

Maya came out behind them, panting, still faintly steaming. “Frell me,” she whispered. “That’s the Winter Soldier. I thought I killed him already!” She started running, already glowing with heat.

“Maya, no!” Tony yelled. “No, stop!” He started to follow her, but Rhodey yanked him back.

“There are still shooters behind him,” Rhodey snapped. “Stay here.”

Tony fought against Rhodey’s hold. “Maya! Stop!”

She ignored him, or didn’t hear him. Her hand closed over Bucky’s metal wrist, and the metal instantly began to glow and sag. Bucky stared at her in bewilderment.

“Bucky!” Tony screamed, struggling to get free. “Maya, _no!_ ”

Bucky glanced behind him, and then straightened, ignoring Maya completely.

“What is he-- Oh, dren, Rhodey, they’re resetting him! They’ve got his codes! Let me go!”

“Tony, _no_! If they’re resetting him then he’ll _kill you!_ ” Rhodey shook Tony hard, as if he could shake sense into Tony’s head.

“He’ll kill me anyway if I don’t get over there!” Tony yelled. “I have an override command! I just have to get close enough!” He yanked at Rhodey’s grip. “ _Bucky! Bucky, don’t listen to them!_ ”

Useless.

Tony sagged, half-sobbing. Bucky’s whole arm was dripping molten steel to the roof, and sparking, sizzling fragments of circuits. A man appeared in the doorway behind Bucky. Tall, ruggedly handsome, with a cold smile. He said something to Bucky, and Bucky lifted his pistol, pointing it directly at Tony.

It was cruel, that Bucky was wearing goggles and a face mask. Tony couldn’t even see his lover’s face before he died? He looked into those merciless goggles, and drew a deep breath. Bucky had to hear him. _Had_ to. “ _Sputnik!_ ” he yelled, as loud as he could.

Bucky stood there for another moment, unmoving, like he was lining up his shot, and then he fell over.

The man in the doorway darted forward, grabbing for Bucky’s leg. Rhodey lifted his own gun and shot, and the man went down, blaster scorchmark precisely between the eyes.

Maya was flaming hotter, getting ready to incinerate Bucky where he lay, helpless. Tony yelled, “No!” and charged across the roof at her, catching her around the waist and spinning her around just as she released. Searing pain painted the insides of Tony’s arms, but she’d missed Bucky. “He’s one of us, Maya,” Tony screamed.

“He’s the _Winter Soldier_ ,” Maya argued. “He’s been sent to _kill you_!”

“He hasn’t!” Tony said. “We’ve been traveling together for _weeks_ , Maya. If he wanted to kidnap or kill me, he’d have done it already. He wants to be free, just like me, just like you. He’s done being their puppet!”

“He almost shot you just now!”

“Because they were making him! They have codes that can control him. But I have the override sleep command. They can’t make him hurt me as long as I have that.”

“You don’t know that!” Maya yelled back at him.

“Then help us! We need to all get away from Hydra, _now!_ ” Tony tapped at his comm. “JARVIS, what’s the ETA on our ship?”

“The _War Machine_ will land on the rooftop within ninety seconds,” JARVIS reported. “I suggest you all clear a space.”

Bucky was too heavy. He was too heavy and Tony’s arms were burned. He sobbed, trying again to get his arms under Bucky, to pull him up.

“Oh, for frell’s sake,” Maya said. She tugged him aside, skin cooling rapidly. “You do more stupid things before breakfast than an entire regiment does in a month. But I’ve got him. I’ve got him, okay, Tony?”

She heaved, lifting Bucky up in a fireman’s carry; he should have been too heavy, even with his arm torn off and sparking at the shoulder, but she didn’t even stagger.

The silver ship that housed JARVIS’s awareness touched down and the ramp opened. Tony let Maya go up first, carrying her precious load.

“Prep medical, J,” Rhodey said. “Tony and Barnes are hurt.”

Tony set foot on the ramp when he heard the sound of a gun charge behind him. He had a second to regret his death when a bullet tore through the air. Tony flinched, but he hadn’t been hit. Slowly, he turned to see the Hydra agent, his throat torn out by a heavy caliber round, go down.

“I wish to issue a retraction, Sir,” JARVIS said, calmly folding the ship’s cannon back into its mounting. “There are times when a physical form does prove useful.”

***

The _War Machine_ ’s medbay was fully stocked with all the latest medical equipment. Tony looked around while Rhodey was bandaging his arms and thought wistfully that Bruce would’ve been excited to see it.

Bucky’s assorted bullet wounds were treated easily enough, as they were already healing. And as they’d seen before, he would wake up on his own from the sleep override. The arm was another question altogether. Maya had completely slagged it. Tony insisted on unhooking as much of what remained as possible, to keep the broken and shorted-out wires from sending unnecessary pain signals.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Tony said. He stared at the remnants of Bucky’s arm for a few moments longer, then told Rhodey, “We need to get Hydra off our trail. Work with JARVIS, put together a flight plan with some random FTL hops. Distance and bearing don’t really matter -- keep them under two days each, but vary it as much as you can. We need them to not be able to predict where we are or where we’ll pop out. And if you can think of a good place to lay low for a couple of weeks, that would be better. Maya and I need to adjust her formulas. And I need to build Bucky a new arm.”

“Do what I can, Tones,” Rhodey said, patting Tony gingerly on the shoulder.

“I need food, and rest,” Maya said. “I’m sorry about your friend. I didn’t know. He was a threat. I thought he was a threat. I’ve been running, Tony, so long, I barely know what a friend looks like anymore.”

“It’ll be okay,” Tony told her. He hesitated, then pulled her into a hug. “We’re going to make everything better, now. You’ll see.” He squeezed her tight for a moment, then let her go. “Rhodey or JARVIS can show you where the galley is, and to a bunk. We’ll start work after we’ve all had some rest.”

“Have your AI send me anything on the old arm. Robotics is not my specialty, but bio-engineering is. We might, between the two of us, get him some upgrades.” She gave Tony a tentative smile that vanished almost as quick, before turning away to follow JARVIS’s directions to food and rest.

“Flight plan logged,” Rhodey said, over the intercom. “A few quick bounces, two hours max. It might get a little queasy, but then we’ll be well and truly lost.”

“Roger that,” Tony said. Just as well Bucky was going to sleep through the first few of those. It was going to play merry havok with the reactor in Tony’s chest, and Bucky got very defensive about Tony’s discomfort. He smoothed the blanket covering Bucky and leaned in to kiss Bucky’s forehead. “Hang in there, sweetheart.”

Then he pulled up a screen and went to work on design.

***

_The first time he woke up, after the fall, he didn’t understand why he was in so much pain. His arm, his whole arm was on fire, except it wasn’t, because it wasn’t frelling there._

_It wasn’t hard for them to keep him contained. One arm and so much pain. For the first few days, they didn’t even bother to lock the door on the cage they kept him in. He could barely crawl and just touching his left shoulder sent him into screaming convulsions._

“ _Hey there, soldier, you look rough,” Rumlow said. He would throw rotten scraps of meat and moldy bread for the soldier to eat, pour half his water over his head. “You stink, better to bathe than drink it, am I right?”_

_Bucky took to licking the moisture off his own skin, salvaging what he could._

_The ragged end of his arm got infected._

_He almost died from the fever._

_And still, his arm burned._

_It wasn’t frelling_ there _and it burned._

_He couldn’t eat, not even when someone issued new orders, and better food was brought. Forcing him, they just made him puke until he almost aspirated on it._

_Someone finally took an interest._

_As a prisoner of war, all he could expect was to die in a cage, but someone… someone took an interest._

_Bucky was so very wrong to be grateful, when he woke up in the hospital._

Blackness, a flicker, behind his eyelids. He tried to reach out and he couldn’t.

His whole arm was on fire.

And it wasn’t _frelling there_.

He woke up screaming.

_In a hospital._

“Hey, hey, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s me, it’s Tony. You’re safe, you’re with me! Bucky, honey, look at me, open your eyes and just look, okay? It’s going to be all right!” The voice was familiar, soothing but urgent, and it had to be a trick, it _had to_. “Come on, it’s me, I’m right here. Can I touch you, baby? Can I just--” There was a hand on his shoulder, on his good shoulder, squeezing lightly, firm and warm.

“It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.” Bucky knew he was breathing too fast, his heart was so loud in his throat. His arm….

“Yeah, baby, I know, I’m sorry, we’re going to build you a new one, I promise. Hey, look at me, we’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Why did it hurt so much, when it wasn’t even there?

Bucky forced his eyes open.

The room was a blur of light and whiteness and color and he couldn’t focus.

“It hurts,” he managed.

He didn’t expect anything to happen, didn’t expect easement. Nothing in his life, in his death, in his reanimation, had led him to believe in a surcease of pain. Nothing… except….

“Tony?”

“Yeah, baby,” Tony said, sounding relieved. “It’s me. I can give you something for the pain, if you want it. Might make you a little bit sleepy. Is that okay?”

“Are… are you real?” Bucky struggled, trying to sit up. Nothing restrained him, except his own weakness. “Am… am I real?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, we’re both real.” Tony squeezed his shoulder again, then moved his hand to take Bucky’s, squeezing that instead. “I’m right here, I’m going to help, I promise.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Okay. You’re here, you’re real. Why… what… where are we?” Nothing seemed real, but he clung to Tony’s hand and tried to believe they were real, they were safe, Tony was okay. He was alive. The room was very bright and his arm hurt.

“We’re on the _War Machine_ ,” Tony said readily. “Specifically, in medical. We had a shootout with Hydra -- You remember any of that? -- and we had to book it fast. So we’re in space, in between jumps right now, waiting for the engines to charge up again.”

He started to drift, the whole world around him rocking gently, whirling like he was being swirled down a drain. “Burned it… burned it off,” he murmured. He didn’t remember that, why didn’t he remember that, except that he _did_. He remembered staring at his arm as it burned. It was still burning. “You stay,” he said, aware that he was pleading more than asking, and asking more than saying.

“Of course I’m going to stay, honey,” Tony said. “I’ll be right here, the whole time. And I’m going to make you a new arm, better than the old one.”

He didn’t want to sleep. But he was so tired. Tony was here. Tony was going to stay.

He drifted in and out for a while, sometimes aware that he had slept and sometimes jerking awake just enough to realize that time was slipping away from him. Sometimes his mother was there. She put a hand on his forehead as if to check his temperature.

Sometimes he was sitting in the chair while Steve was ill. Brooklyn was so cold in the winter and Steve got sick so easily. They didn’t have a lot of money and fuel to run the heating systems was rationed. It was supposed to be something about the war effort, but Bucky’s dad had blamed it on the government, that they were starving and freezing the population in order to get people to sign up for the Army, that the Army volunteers got food and heating chits and the rest of them without sons and daughters of the right age were just left to freeze to death.

Bucky was going to be a soldier.

Bucky’s father went to a protest one night and never came home again.

But…

And then Tony again, still sitting there, giving him a quick smile, trying to show him designs for a new arm, but Bucky couldn’t wrap his brain around it. Why was Tony there, in Brooklyn? Didn’t make sense.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed when he finally woke all the way up.

Tony was sleeping, his head pillowed on his arm, his arm against the side of Bucky’s bed. That… that could not be comfortable, Bucky thought.

But Tony had promised he wouldn’t leave, and he’d kept that promise.

“Hey,” Bucky nudged him. “Hey, sleepy.”

Tony jerked awake. “Hu-- What? Are you okay? Do you need another dose for the pain?”

“I… I’m okay,” Bucky said. He patted Tony’s hair absently. “Thought maybe you should move, before you turn into a pretzel.”

“I’m all right,” Tony said. He stretched, and his spine let out an impressive series of crackles. He winced. “Okay, maybe I should move a little. But I don’t want to leave you alone here.”

An instant of panic at the thought of Tony going anywhere. Bucky hastily smothered it before the thought sent him gasping. He struggled to scoot over on the bed; not having a left arm made that simple task dren-nigh impossible, but Bucky managed it, after a bit. “C’mere, come on, come… come up here, honey.”

“Yeah?” Tony searched Bucky’s face, but whatever he saw there must have answered him. He nodded and climbed carefully up onto the narrow med bunk. He stretched out at Bucky’s side, tangling their legs together and laying half on top of Bucky’s chest. Tony tucked his arm over Bucky’s side, careful not to jostle what was left of Bucky’s arm, and snuggled happily down. “Yeah, this is much better.”

Maybe… maybe Bucky could sleep, actually rest, now. “Love you,” he whispered, kissing the top of Tony’s head, feeling those crisp curls under his lips.

 


	25. Chapter 25

“Miss Potts has been funneling research monies into outfitting the fleet for some time now,” JARVIS was telling Maya. “Smaller, discretionary funds, salaries paid out to falsified personas, a few dummy corporations.” DUM-E looked up as his name was mentioned, but not given anything to pick up, put out, or run over, he went back to attempting, very seriously, to flip over Tony’s water bottle and make it stand on end. It was a futile effort, but the bot appeared to be engaged in the activity. “Certain necessities have been obtained, Miss Hanson.”

“Seriously, “ Maya said, peering into her microscope again, “I gotta get me one of these. Your equipment is top-grade.”

“Thank you, Miss Hanson, we do our best.”

Tony took the water bottle away from DUM-E and drank half of it before handing it back. “I see you’re already knee-deep in it,” he told Maya. “Ready to really get to work?”

Maya nodded. “The whole bursting into flame thing has been really hard on my wardrobe. I’m--” she stepped back to give him a view of the ‘scope. “--seeing a few ways to lower the exothermic reaction, but it’s going to cut the healing factor down by a significant margin.”

“How significant? I mean, it’s already impressive. We could easily cut the healing factor by half and still have enough enhancement to make it worthwhile.” Tony adjusted the ‘scope’s magnification and scrawled half of an equation on the waiting datapad. “Cool as the firebreathing is, I don’t think we want to be handing that out to the general public.”

“For general usage, yes,” Maya said. “Even decreasing the healing a little more, most people would be able to heal small cuts and bone breaks within a week’s time. Should provide immunity from commonly transmitted viruses.” She nudged him, grinning. “After all this time, we could finally cure the common cold. Can you imagine the improvement, in general? If we can replicate this and get it out to the populations? Productivity increased by at least thirty percent, just due to recovered worker time.”

“That’s the goal,” Tony agreed. “JARVIS give me an extrapolation on this formula, would you?” The graph appeared on a screen, and Tony turned it toward Maya. “How far down do we have to go to eliminate the firebreathing, do you think?”

“There’s always a risk that someone will find a method to boost that -- the modern equivalent of PCP or something -- enough to weaponize it again, but… right around here, that should do it for most people,” Maya said. “Which still boosts a tremendous gain for healing, energy, and stamina. All the things that we bypassed originally with technology, so natural selection decided not to bother giving it to us.”

“Make a note there, J.” He pointed at the far right of the graph. “What happens if we boost it up there, do you think?”

“With the sort of population centers we’re thinking about enhancing, the chances of some sort of mutation is always possible,” Maya said, dubiously. “But this will probably keep it to _reasonable_ side effects.”

“There is always the herd immunity to think about as well, Sir,” JARVIS added. “If seventy percent of a given population has been enhanced, those who have not will be healthier, too, as the spread of germs and disease throughout the population will be greatly eliminated.”

“Good point,” Tony said. “Now, the real question: how badly does it break if we try to make this adjustment?”

Maya ran the simulation and scowled. “Pretty sure making people virtually immortal will be bad for long term population growth, especially when you consider the increased fertility periods.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a long-term disaster.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “For you, however, we’re going to need some boost to the healing, because you need constant cell regeneration. Heavy metal poisoning isn’t like a trifling little cold. So, the system’s going to constantly be harvesting and replacing those cells. Given the damage to your heart and how long that’s been in play, I don’t think the healing’s going to recognize that there’s anything wrong with it, and give you a base fix. Like your friend’s arm. He’ll never grow a new one.”

Tony nodded, then tapped at the arc reactor. “We can use this to boost the onboard function of the nanites,” he said. “It creates lots more power than my heart actually needs, there’s plenty to go around.” It was a little disappointing that Extremis wouldn’t fix the damage to his heart, but if it would stay on top of the heavy metal poisoning and keep him from dying in the next month or so, then it would be worth it.

Maya chuckled. “I heard about you using it to boost the FTL. You know, if we add an additional thirty percent here, I think we can kill the exothermic reactions, but give you some extra speed, especially, I was thinking, increased synapses. Did you ever want to just _think_ at your computer and have it do what you wanted it to do? I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but I think the possibility of adding a neural interface at the-- here, in the vertebral canal  -- and you’d be able to link up. The ship, your computer. JARVIS. Ambient systems around you.”

JARVIS made one of those not-quite-sounds, “I might express my discomfort with the idea of SIR mucking about directly in my systems. He continues to insist that his musical tastes are to be preferred.”

Tony loved JARVIS’ sass. “It’s an interesting idea,” he said. “Let’s load up the simulations and see if it makes my brain explode.”

“Excuse me?” That was not Maya, it was not even JARVIS. That was a dark shadow leaning against the wall of the shipboard lab.

Tony startled. “Hey, babe! You’re very sneaky, don’t do that. What’s up?”

Bucky had taken to wearing white linen ship-board outfits, all soft cloth and drawstring closures, but honestly, he could be wearing sackcloth and Tony’s heart would skip a beat, just looking at him. They’d capped off the arm, and he still angled himself awkwardly while being near people, like he was embarrassed by his stump.

“Well,” he drawled, “I came t’ see if you an’ Miss Hanson were plannin’ on eating lunch sometime before dinner, an’ then I happened to overhear a real interestin’ conversation about whether or not you were gonna be testing a second enhancement on yourself.”

“Well, we have to test it somewhere,” Tony said reasonably.

Bucky’s mouth wobbled. “People die from enhancements. All th’ time, Tony. Not everyone can handle it, an’ you’re already two pegs down with… with your arc reactor.”

“That’s why I have to be the test case,” Tony said, as gently as he could. “I need it.”

“You _could die_ ,” Bucky insisted. “The lithium dioxide works. There’s gotta be a better solution.” Tony could see in his face that Bucky already knew the truth, but was begging Tony to tell him there was a better, safer way.

“It doesn’t, sweetheart,” Tony said. “The lithium dioxide is a stopgap. It helps with the symptoms. The real damage is deep on the inside, where we can’t see it. I’ve tried everything I can think of to replace the palladium core, but... This is the only solution I’ve been left with.” He reached out for Bucky’s hand. “I want to stay with you. I want longer. I need this.”

Tony could feel Bucky shaking under his hand, bone deep tremors. “Don’t you leave me,” Bucky said, like an order. Like an oath. “Don’t you _frelling_ leave me.”

“I’m doing my best,” Tony promised. “I’ll swear it by whatever you want. By my arc reactor, by DUM-E’s circuits, by JARVIS’ core code, by everything I hold dear. I’m trying to stay.”

Bucky wrapped his arm around Tony’s back and kissed him. Hard, desperate, passionate. Terrified. When he finally pulled back, panting for breath, he said, “I need. Some time, okay? Just… lemme alone a bit, while I…” He kissed Tony again, turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Tony that much colder for his absence.

Tony watched the empty doorway for several minutes after Bucky disappeared through it. “Well,” he said finally. “That went... It went. That’s about all I can say for it.” He sighed and turned back to Maya and the screen. “Let’s make extra-special certain this doesn’t explode my brain, okay? Okay.”

“Yeah,” Maya said. She gave him a quick look. “I’d hate to get that all over my shirt.”

***

It wasn’t nearly as satisfying to throw things aboard a spaceship as it was land-bound. First of all, duriplas was gorram impossible to break without putting a lot of effort into it, and without the leverage of two hands, Bucky was reduced to a JARVIS-suggested round in the smash-court. Pummeling the frell out of a small, hard rubber ball in a low-grav room let him get out quite a bit of aggression and wear himself out without damaging anything they might need later.

Like the hull.

He went through three rackets before he’d finally exhausted himself enough to flip the racket aside, snatch the ball out of mid-air, and exit the court, dripping with sweat, hungry enough to eat a live cow, and powerfully thirsty.

Tony was in the galley, making coffee. He glanced up as Bucky came in. “Give me two minutes, I’ll be out of your way.” It sounded regretful.

“No, s’fine,” Bucky said. He gripped a water bottle with one hand and used his teeth to wrench the screwcap off. He would have said more, but the scent of the water was too tempting to resist, and he guzzled the bottle in a single go. “Stay.”

Tony blew out a breath, then gave Bucky a small smile. “Happy to. J, tell Maya we’re going to take a break.”

“Miss Hanson says, and I quote, sir, ‘who needs sleep?’ Which is, I must say, a sentiment you have a particular fondness for, as well,” JARVIS reported.

“A sentiment I still enjoy,” Tony said. “I’m just redistributing my attention for a while. Tell her I’ll see her in the morning.”

Bucky watched Tony from under his lashes, not pausing in his raiding of their food stores, putting together a substantial snack, high in protein and fats. He was too worn down to feel anything more than a pale flicker of anger. “You’re sure. There’s no other way?” It seemed like rehashing the same ground, over and over, like a wound that he couldn’t seem to stop poking and let it heal.

“I’m sure I can’t think of any other way,” Tony said. “Not without turning myself in for some other enhancement. Maybe someone else could think of another way. Maybe there’s an element out there somewhere that would work as a replacement for the palladium without poisoning me, but if so, it’s nothing we’ve discovered. Maybe there’s a treatment that’s more than a stopgap, but I haven’t found one. I just... I’ve got weeks left. This is my best chance at hand.”

He turned from the coffee and put his hands on Bucky’s face, turning Bucky to look at him directly. “We’re doing everything we can to make it safe. We’re running every simulation, trying to account for every variable. We’re not just rolling the dice, here. We’re weighting everything we can in my favor.”

A jumble of emotions rolled through him, too fast and numerous to pick them out. Bucky snagged a bit of a stage production he’d once climbed a fence and hidden in rafters to see. “ _So tiny we are, in this vast universe, that all we can grasp are these few moments, and hold on with all our might._ ” He leaned against Tony’s palm. “I’m scared to lose you.”

Tony leaned in, his breath ghosting over Bucky’s skin briefly before their lips touched, gentle and lingering. “I know,” he said. “I’m scared, too. I’m running toward a cliff and trying to build a kite as I go. I have to jump eventually. I’d rather it be under my own power.”

The frightened, childlike part of him wanted to pull back, wanted to lash out and scream and hurt something as much as he was hurting. It wouldn’t make him hurt less, but there was some satisfaction in it. Not enough. If these were the last few days he’d have with a man who’d come to mean so much to him, he was going to take them, every minute of it, and _live_ it. He wasn’t going to look back on these moments with regret.

“Come on,” he said, tugging light at Tony’s hand. “Come lay down with me a while, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “That sounds nice.” He walked with Bucky back to their room, uncharacteristically quiet.

Bucky let the silence stretch out between them, until he thought he was going to go mad. The hatch to their bunk sealed behind them and Bucky wanted to pin Tony against the wall and kiss him into compliance, until he was clinging to Bucky with both hands. He didn’t; missing an arm made more than a few things difficult. Not impossible, but he didn’t want to make a production of it; the most he could do with the frelling stump was windmill it around a little, which made his whole shoulder ache.

“Unit for your thoughts,” Bucky prodded a little, sitting down on the bunk and drawing Tony after him.

He had to admit, the War Machine was a frelling luxury ship; the bunk was soft and yielding, the sheets smooth and satiny.

“Little worried about you,” Tony said, leaning into Bucky’s side. “You’re in a harder position than I am. I’m sorry about that.”

“I have a plan,” Bucky told him. “You won’t like it, but I have one.” Tony smelled like metal and sweat and the undertone of soap and coconut. A uniquely Tony-like smell. Bucky nuzzled at the side of his neck, seeking to memorize the scent.

“Well, tell me anyway. You don’t like my plan, so it seems fair.”

“You might be one of us, honey,” Bucky told him, “but you still ain’t. Not exactly. You’ve seen it, you know what’ll happen to you if you can’t get th’ law changed. But you ain’t been there. But you know somethin’? There’s a lot of us. You die in this, I’ll carry your flag forward, baby, but we’re gonna do it my way. I don’t know dren about th’ law, but I know a lot about destabilizing governments. They don’t listen to you, maybe it’s time for a revolution. I will burn it all down for you.”

Tony took a breath, and let it out slow. “Yeah, I can’t say I like it. But maybe you’re right. Maybe the only thing to do is start over, if this doesn’t work.” He leaned his head on Bucky’s shoulder. “Here’s to hoping we won’t need your plan.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Much rather have you as mine, than as a martyr to th’ cause.” He took a deep breath, then went ahead and asked the other question, he didn’t want to know, but he needed to know. “When?”

“Soon. We’re very close to working out the last few details, and after that, the only thing to do will be to jump.” Tony took Bucky’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Do you... want to be there?”

“‘Til the very last breath you take,” Bucky swore. “Always.”

“So you meant it, then.” Tony looked up at him, eyes dark and serious.

It was very frustrating, only having one hand. He wanted to keep his fingers laced with Tony’s. And he wanted to brush his knuckles over Tony’s cheek. He wanted to put his hand over the arc-reactor and feel the thrum of the mechanism there that was keeping Tony alive. “Meant what, honey?”

“When you said you loved me.”

Bucky felt his cheeks heat. “You heard that.” It wasn’t a question. Too soon, maybe, or too much. Fell too fast, he felt too much. Bucky knew that. Knew it, couldn’t help it, wouldn’t deny it. “I do.”

“Good,” Tony said, exhaled on a shaky breath. “That’s... that’s good. Because I love you, too.”

Oh.

Oh.

_Oh._

Bucky didn’t even know how badly he needed to hear it until Tony said it. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but look, meeting Tony’s gaze and losing himself in those whiskey dark eyes.

And then Tony kissed him. And Bucky discovered he could move after all.

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut-averse folks - go on and skip this chapter, that's about all we've got.

Tony climbed onto Bucky’s lap, still kissing him, pushing him back onto the bed. Tony braced his arms on either side of Bucky’s head and looked down at him, at this beautiful, remarkable man who somehow, _somehow_ had fallen in love with him. “I love you,” he said again, because he could, and it was like a breath of cool air in the heat of summer.

The expression on Bucky’s face reminded him of the same relief he’d experienced when Tony shut down the arm that was causing him pain, and then he smiled, dotting kisses across Tony’s forehead, down his nose, across each cheek. “Say it again,” he told Tony, earnestly, eagerly, as if needing to hear it the same way he needed air. “Tell me.”

“I love you,” Tony said, and kissed Bucky hard, until they were both panting for breath. “Love you,” Tony repeated, trailing his lips down to nip at the soft spot under Bucky’s ear. “Love you,” he breathed into Bucky’s ear, and traced his tongue around the rim of it. Each time, Bucky shivered and held him tighter. “Until the end of my days.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said, like Tony was some gift, like Tony was worthy of being loved, like Tony’s love was precious. There was an intensity to his stare, deeper meaning to the way his hand gripped Tony’s shoulder, traced down to his hip, than anything Tony had ever known. Even if it was temporary, the way so many of his relationships had been, a brief interlude based on shared trauma and mutual need, it was so much more intense.

Bucky struggled with his ship’s clothing, loose and easy to manage as it was, but eventually he got the knots undone and Tony helped him slide the cloth away until Bucky was naked underneath him. All that gorgeous skin on display, and all for Tony’s sake.

Tony kissed and lipped down Bucky’s neck to the hollow of his throat, the delicate curve of his collarbones. Tony scraped his teeth over that soft, fragile skin, just to feel Bucky shudder, sucked at it and then soothed it with his tongue. “You’re so beautiful.” Tony kissed further down, until he was close enough to flick at Bucky’s nipple with his tongue, teasing and tormenting until Bucky arched under him, breathing fast and heavy.

“Jus’ an old soldier,” Bucky told him. His hand went to Tony’s hair, twining his fingers in the curls, pulling Tony even closer as if the tiny bit of distance between them was too much to bear, until there was nothing between them but heat and desire. Bucky dragged Tony’s mouth up to his, claiming it, forcing a surrender, holding Tony as if he needed to, as if Tony hadn’t already given himself over as completely as he knew how.

Bucky moaned into Tony’s mouth, and he tasted like sin and felt like a dream. His hand left Tony’s hair to slide down his back, along his hip, cup Tony’s ass. He trailed kisses along Tony’s shoulder, nipping at his throat.

Tony tipped his head back, encouraging more of those sweet-hot kisses. He wriggled his hips until their cocks aligned, rubbing together like the most perfect torture. “Oh, _dren_ that’s good,” he gasped. He rolled his body again, seeking more of that friction. He traced one hand over Bucky’s torso, the broad muscles and smooth curves, lightly pinching at the nipples and examining the bumps of Bucky’s ribs.

Bucky moved under Tony’s hands, unselfconsciously enjoying and seeking more, driving Tony wild with his wanton movements. He ran his hand up Tony’s thigh, teasing at his hip, stroked the smooth skin of his belly. From time to time, his stump would arch, reach, and Bucky’s mouth flattened with frustration, every time he forgot, or even shifted. “Wanna hold you, baby,” he whined, unexpectedly tender in the middle of mindless passion.

“I know,” Tony said. “I’m going to make you a new arm, better than the old one. I’ve been working on it. It’s almost done. In the meantime...” He ducked to kiss Bucky again, scraping his teeth over Bucky’s lip. “Just let me love you, hmm?”

Tony slithered out from under Bucky’s arm and slid down the bed, nestling between Bucky’s thighs. “Let me make you feel good.” He licked a stripe up Bucky’s cock, lingering at the head.

He heard Bucky suck air and let it out with a soft sigh. “That is… oh, that is _wicked_ ,” Bucky murmured. He moved, legs falling open to give Tony more room, his hand going to the blankets to grip and twist. His thighs were quivering, knees coming up to squeeze Tony’s shoulders. “I like it. Do it again.” He laughed at Tony’s expression, whatever it was.  

“Do it again?” Tony teased. “Like this?” He licked another stripe, slow and warm. “Or like this--” A fast, darting series of licks. “Or this?” He tongued at Bucky’s slit, tasting the precome welling there. “You like that, sweetheart?”

Bucky arched again, lopsided as his shoulder refused to support the neat, beautiful curve that Tony had seen before. “All of it, dren, Tony…”

“Good,” Tony said. “Want you to feel good, honey.” He licked up Bucky’s cock again, and this time took it into his mouth, sliding slowly down until his nose was buried in the soft dark curls at its base. It filled his mouth perfectly, nudging against the back of his throat, sweet and salt and bitter and perfect. Tony hummed his satisfaction, and hummed some more as Bucky jerked in response to the vibration.

Bucky’s breath grew ragged as Tony worked him over, until he was moaning almost continuously, sometimes punctuated by a fervent swear, or a sharp jerk upward. “Tony… oh, frell, Tony, you…” He lifted one leg, draped it over Tony’s back, trying to direct Tony’s speed, his heel pushing against Tony’s hip with increasing urgency.

Tony let Bucky direct him, wanting to make it good, wanting to make it perfect. He opened his throat as much as he could and let Bucky fuck into it. Curled his hand around Bucky’s balls, lifting and stroking them. Pressed his thumb into Bucky’s perineum, massaging gently until Bucky was all but shouting with need for release. He hummed encouragingly and dragged his tongue along Bucky’s cock with as much enthusiasm and finesse as he could summon.

Bucky twisted under him, wriggling and squirming. “Tony, please, Tony, I need…” He reached down, hand opening and closing helplessly, fingers brushing Tony’s shoulder. “I want…” That bronze-tawny skin of his went red and raw as he flushed, flowers of color blooming down his chest and spotting along his upper thighs. “Frell, so hot. Please, Tony. Want you, want you, please, I want t’ feel you in me, please.”

How could he say no to such sweet begging? Tony fumbled for lube and squeezed some out on his fingers. He pulled off Bucky’s cock as he circled Bucky’s hole. “Want this, sweetheart? Going to make you feel so, so good.” He dipped his finger in, just a bit, teasing, then went back to circling. “Open up for me, just relax, hmm?”

“I want, I want, I… oh, frell, that’s so… you make me feel so good, Tony,” Bucky gasped, twisting and pushing back on Tony’s finger. He tossed his head back and forth, lips still moving, but seemingly unable to form words, just mouthing breathless, needy little sounds. He shuddered and gasped, and sometimes stilled as he struggled to accommodate Tony’s fingers, waiting for the muscle to let go.

Tony worked Bucky open slowly, carefully, distracting him from the burn with teasing licking and sucking on his cock, inside his thighs, on his stomach. “That’s it, that’s perfect, you’re so beautiful, so amazing,” he promised. “Look at you, frell. I could do this for _hours_.” He twisted his wrist, curling his fingers in search of that spot that would make Bucky wail with the intensity of pleasure. “So gorgeous.”

A shudder worked its way up Bucky’s spine and then he finally let go, surrendered. He was still wracked with shivers, still murmuring words of want and need, but he gave a glaze-eyed look at Tony and smiled, sweet and gentle. “You’re beautiful,” he told Tony, very seriously. “An’ I love you. But if you don’t get up here, I am gonna _lose my gorram mind_.”

Tony laughed a little. “Well, I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.” He slicked himself and lined up against Bucky’s now-eager hole. “This is going to feel so good.” Tony stretched up and kissed Bucky, hard and sloppy as he eased in. Bucky was so frelling tight and hot and _perfect_. “Oh, frell,” he cursed. “Honey, you’re so... So good.” He slid further in, and further, until he was fully seated, as deep as he could go. “Oh, dren, you’re _amazing_.”

“Oh,” Bucky said, breathlessly, “oh, that… that’s good.” He squirmed as Tony settled in, trying to get more comfortable, then wriggled in the other direction. By degrees, the pressure eased and Bucky opened up to him. “Oh, that’s… _very_ good.” His voice came out slurred, like he’d been drinking. He shifted a third time, rocking his hips against Tony’s, experimentally.

Tony grinned. “You a little drunk on it, honey?” He pulled out a little and pushed in, not so much thrusting as rolling his hips, testing Bucky’s response. “It always feels just that good for me, too. Love having you in me. I’m loving this, too. Love being _with_ you, however we can.”

Bucky moved with Tony, taking him in, just frelling _taking_ him. He gripped Tony’s hip, fingers pressing into the meaty part of his thigh. Rocked up with Tony’s movement, meeting him, stroke for stroke, seeking friction and pleasure. The galaxy went away, and what little remained of thought, and they were bodies in motion, slick and subtle against each other. Only feeling remained, and a need that could only be sated in the other. Bucky thrust up, instinctively, driving them together. “I love you, I love you,” and his voice was low, reverberating and echoing in the room.

Tony circled his hips and then thrust sharply, making sparks skate down his spine. “Sweetheart, oh, dren, honey, I love you, love you so much, need you, want you.” He thrust again and again, Bucky meeting his rhythm, matching it and complementing it and completing it. Tony groaned and tucked his head into Bucky’s neck, panting against Bucky’s throat. “Oh, oh, _oh_ , Bucky, I love you, need you always...” He slid his lube-slick hand between them, wrapped his palm and fingers around Bucky’s length. “Come on, honey, come with me, come for me.”

In the midst of their movements, Bucky seemed beyond speech, body caught in a powerful current of sensation. A heartbeat later, a powerful tremor went through him and shuddered into Tony, like lightning. For that moment, everything was perfect, blissful, and then Bucky shouted. Spilled hot and wet over Tony’s hand, his body trembling and clenching down, squeezing perfectly around Tony.

Tony pushed into that heat twice more, three times, and his balls drew up tight against his body and a white-hot flame lit at the base of his spine and flashed fire through all his limbs. He drove deep into Bucky’s body, needing as much of Bucky as he could have, needing all of Bucky in that moment of vulnerability and power. His climaxed washed over him in waves, and he could only hold on tight and ride it out.

He dropped onto Bucky’s chest, panting for air and still feeling shuddery and overstimulated. “Oh, frell, that was... that was _frelling perfect_.”

“ _You_ are,” Bucky said, his hand still plastered on Tony’s backside, unwilling, or maybe unable, to do more than lay there and breathe.

Tony managed to gather himself enough to pull out and roll to the side. “ _We_ are.” He snuggled in against Bucky’s side, throwing his leg over one of Bucky’s. “Love you.”

“I’m glad of it,” Bucky said. “Don’t deserve it, but I reckon either no one does, or we all do. Jus’ wanna take everything I can get of you, while I can get it. ‘Til you come to your senses an’ wonder what you’re doin’ with a broken old soldier like me.”

Tony scoffed. “You’re wonderful. Quick and smart and brave and gorgeous. You might be older than me in years, but I’m pretty sure if we talk about percentage of life expectancy, you’re younger. You certainly _look_ younger. And you’re not so broken that you can’t love me back.”

Bucky chuckled. “I knew your father when he was in his twenties,” he pointed out. “I’m _old_ , darlin’ whether I look it or not. But I love you, love you so much it’s like my heart breaks jus’ lookin’ at you.”

“I love you, too. I may never get tired of saying that, just so you know. Or hearing it.”

“Let you in on a secret,” Bucky said, “everythin’ I say to you is _I love you_. Jus’ sometimes comes out as _what idiotic thing are you doin’ now_?”

“That seems to be a theme in my relationships,” Tony sighed. “You, Rhodey, Pepper...”

 


	27. Chapter 27

The poison was killing him. Tony imagined he could feel it turning his blood into dark sludge, slowly filling his organs and veins with impenetrable walls, leaching the warmth from his body. There wasn’t much time left - a day or two, maybe three at the outside.

He had to finish Bucky's arm. He’d promised.

Maya had come through on her end, an upgrade to the neural interface. Tony’s design was complete, but his hands shook, making it impossible to build and assemble the fine components. But he’d promised. He wouldn’t risk Extremis until Bucky’s arm was done.

Until he’d fulfilled this last promise.

Just in case. If Bucky was going to burn the galaxy down in Tony’s memory, then he should have all the tools that Tony could give him.

“Tones, man,” Rhodey said, “what are you doing here?” Tony had badgered Rhodey into helping; assembling the components, holding tools, following Tony’s direction. It was hard as frell to not scream in frustration; Tony could do it better, faster, on his own, except that he couldn’t, but there was no reasoning with the part of his brain that wanted to snatch the tools away and get to work. “No one’s gonna be served if you die.”

“I have to make sure it works,” he said. “Stop pestering me and finish that assembly.”

“It’s done,” Rhodey said, “just waiting on the metal components to cool, so the self-replicating neuron framework will grow. You don’t need to french fry the poor guy’s central nervous system.”

“Fine, fine, yes, not shorting out anything, good,” Tony said. He rubbed his hands together. He couldn’t seem to get warm anymore. “Get me a coffee, would you, sourpatch?”

Rhodey shook his head, “Look, man, I don’t want to come across like a dick, you know, but, you need to drop this and go down to medical.” He held up his hands like Tony had already protested. “I’m goin’, I’m goin’. Just. Think about it. More than just Barnes will be hurtin’ if you die on us.”

Ouch. “I know,” Tony said on a sigh. “I just. I’ve done everything I can for you, and for Pep. I need to make sure he’s taken care of. Just in case something goes wrong.”

“Like we all aren’t fully grown adults, and capable of looking after ourselves,” Rhodey said. He took Tony’s hands between his, rubbing them warm. “I’ll be right back with that coffee, you’re gonna drink it, we’ll run the sims, and then you’re going to medical if I have to get Barnes up here to carry your ass down there. Got it?”

“What good is medical going to do me?” Tony complained, but it was mostly a knee-jerk reaction. He’d go to medical if it made Rhodey feel better. They were close, they were so close -- if the sims on the arm ran as well as he expected, then he could call Maya and they could start the download right away.

Rhodey scowled and didn’t bother to answer, just stalked away to get Tony a cup of coffee. He’d gone through so much of it recently, and it didn’t seem to be helping. Curling his hands around the cup kept his fingers warm, but the caffeine was barely touching the exhaustion inside his head. And he’d had so much of it that the arc reactor was cycling at almost twenty percent over his normal heart rate, so, he was clinging to a habit that was just killing him faster. Situation normal: all frelled up.

Tony tested the last assembly with a poking finger, then made JARVIS load up the sim so it was ready to go. By the time Rhodey came back, everything was prepped except for actually connecting the thing to power to run the tests.

Rhodey put the mug down near Tony’s elbow. “Give me your hand a minute,” he said, and when Tony absently complied, Rhodey jabbed the side of his finger with a testing needle. “Eighty-six percent, Tones.” He flashed the meter at him. “That doesn’t mean working until you’ve got 2% left, that means you need to _go now_. You need to throw the switch, you need to take the chance, because if your body don’t have the strength to resist the initial bonding period with the Extremis, you’re gonna die of shock in the first ten minutes.”

“I shouldn’t have let you talk to Maya,” Tony grumbled, rubbing at his finger. “Fine, I’m going. You tell me the instant the report comes back on the sim, because I’m going to want to make tweaks as soon as I’m done with the integration.” He picked up the mug and wrapped his hands around it, wanting it for the warmth more than the caffeine anyway. “JARVIS. Tell Maya and Bucky that it’s time.”

He gripped Rhodey’s arm, not as tightly as he would have liked, in silent thanks and appreciation.

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS said, “and if I might be so bold, good luck, sir.”

“No luck needed, J,” Tony said, because he was nothing if not fueled by spite and bravado. “I’ve got science.” He strode from the engineering room as confidently as he could manage, but let himself fall into a pained shuffle as soon as he was out of Rhodey’s sight. He had to stop and lean against the wall several times to push through waves of pain and nausea.

When medical was in view, he forced himself upright again. “All right, Rhodey’s being a nag and I just can’t handle it anymore. Let’s get this done.”

“Of our little cadre of renegades, he may have the best sense of all,” Maya told him. She held up the three vials of orangish goo that was Tony’s last, best hope. “Protocols indicate that you’ll have the best chance of a successful adaptation if we do a three part series. Part two follows two hours after the initial injection, and the final, as a booster, twenty-four hours later.”

The set up where she indicated Tony should lay down was less hospital bed and more dungeon torture rack, complete with padded cuffs and a thick chest strap.

Bucky scowled at the set up, fingering one of the cuffs. “What is this?”

“It’s not a painless process,” Maya said. “And an enhancile’s newborn strength can be… unexpectedly high.”

“Safety precautions, blah blah, bored now,” Tony said. He stripped off his shirt and climbed onto the table. “It’ll be fine, Buck. I’ll be up and around in plenty of time to help fit your shiny new arm, I expect.”

“Take all the time you need, honey,” Bucky told him. His eyes flickered down to Tony’s chest, and throat, where the black lines of heavy metal poisoning had traced out in a steady spider’s web up his body.

Being strapped down to a bed was not, honestly, quite as fun as he might have hoped.

He tipped his head to catch Bucky’s eye. “Kiss for luck, soldier?”

It was not the best kiss he could have hoped for, either; Bucky’s one hand was occupied in holding him, hovering, over Tony, and both of Tony’s were locked down, unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. But it was sweet, and it was warm, and Bucky tasted like coffee. “It’ll be fine, baby. I’ll be here, th’ whole time.”

Tony wanted to say something flip, something confident to help soothe Bucky’s nerves. But truthfully, Tony’s own nerves needed the bolster of knowing Bucky was there with him. He nodded, then looked down the table at Maya. “Let’s do it.”

Maya nodded, brushed his hair out of his face for him. She inserted a shunt into his arm, a quick sting and then taped it in place. “Little saline, since you’re dehydrated,” she said. That was boring, and then she said, “This is thick, so I’m going to have to push it in a little at a time. Try not to clench your fist for at least three minutes.”

Three minutes, that shouldn’t be hard, right?

Maya loaded the first vial into her kit, touched the needle to the shunt’s reservoir, and pushed the plunger a fraction of a millimeter.

It... tingled as it hit his bloodstream, like the very beginning of pins and needles. Tony wiggled his fingers, reminding himself to keep them loose. “Seems to be working,” he said. “Keep going.”

The plunger depressed more, a millimeter. Two. “Point of no return,” she said, pushing down slowly. “And… we’re committed.” She finished the push and removed the kit. “Deep breaths, if you can. Try not to panic. This is all normal.”

“Nothing is normal,” Tony pointed out, “it’s a brand new-- oh _frell_ , that burns.” The tingling had turned into something much more intense, like tiny knives scraping out his veins, leaving the walls of them ragged. “Oh. Oh, dren, that’s...”

The sensation was growing even more painful, and climbing up his arm toward his shoulder.

“Don’t clench your fist, baby,” Bucky reminded him, the words barely falling on ears that were roaring with the rush of blood. Tony tried to relax his hand, but he couldn’t feel it through the searing sensation that engulfed his whole arm.

The pain was moving inward now, down his chest toward his heart, climbing up his neck toward his head. It was worse than burning, worse than anything he’d ever felt in his life. He was being eaten alive.

Tony screamed.

***

Tony couldn’t hear him; that was obvious after the first ten minutes. Tony gasped, screamed, writhed, screamed again. Nothing Bucky said seemed to help at all. Tony was beyond hearing him.

Tony’s fists were clenched so tight, Bucky couldn’t even hold his hand. He settled for resting his fingers in a loose circle around Tony’s wrist.

Heat poured out of Tony’s skin, like everything inside him had turned to molten steel.

“You can’t give him somethin’ for the pain?” Bucky begged, knowing he was begging, and not being able to help it.

“I’m afraid not,” Maya said. “If he were stronger, maybe. But he pushed it all the way out to the limit, and depressing his heart at this time... There’s not an analgesic that exists that could take much of this away without practically putting him into a coma, and he wouldn’t live through it.”

It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t fair, and Bucky knew it, but in that moment, he _hated_ Maya Hanson. Loathed her with every fiber in his being.

“He’s still screaming,” Rhodey said, leaning in through the doorway, his face twisted with tension and worry. “That’s... that’s good, really. I was afraid he wouldn’t have the strength for it. But if he can scream, he’s still holding on, awful as it sounds.”

“Sounds pretty gorram awful,” Bucky agreed. He was having a little trouble breathing, with just how awful it sounded. He didn’t remember much of his own alterations. He thought that might be a good thing, his brain protecting him. Because even now, listening to Tony suffer, Bucky didn’t know how bad it was, he could only project and speculate.

Tony was suffering.

Tony was in agony.

“I’m here,” he told Tony. “I’m here, baby, I got you.”

It was all he could do. And it wasn’t close to enough.

“Maya!” Bucky almost jerked his hand free. The black marks on Tony’s chest flared, and suddenly a whole row of them shot upward toward his brain, making his face darken ominously.

“Frell,” she swore. “His heart’s working overtime. It’s pushing the toxicity levels.” Maya grabbed a testing kit. Tony didn’t even notice when she stabbed him in the shoulder, drawing a few drops of blood. “Toxicity’s at ninety-six percent.” She exchanged a panicked glance with Rhodey.

“What does that mean?”

Maya didn’t answer him.

“ _What does it mean_?”

“Means that his arc reactor is killing him faster than the Extremis can bond with his cells to heal him,” Rhodey said, finally.

Tony strained against his bonds, screaming again, voice rough. Was it beginning to weaken? Was that fatigue, or something more sinister? A soft orange glow shone through his skin around the IV shunt.

“There,” Maya said, pointing. “That’s the beginning of the bonding process. It’s a race, now, whether the Extremis can work into his vital systems before the palladium poisoning shuts him down completely.”

“You stay with me, baby,” Bucky told him. “You stay, you hold on, Tony, you _promised…_ ”

“He’ll be okay,” Rhodey said, and he sounded confident. “Tony’s tough.” Rhodey’s hand came down on the back of Bucky’s neck, giving a comforting squeeze. “He’s gotten out of worse jams than this.”

The orange glow made its way up Tony’s arm in sullen pulses, but the black lines seemed to be racing to cover every inch of Tony’s skin. They met at Tony’s shoulder and the black seemed to give way, the orange surging forward to consume it.

Bucky only realized he was holding his breath when he had to gasp for air. “You can do it,” he whispered. “Hang in there, honey.”

Tony’s head tipped back in another futile attempt to arch in agony, his screaming taking on a sudden and desperate tinge. Then, all at once, he collapsed, went limp and silent.

“Tony?” Bucky asked. “Tony?” His voice spiraled up in panic. “Tony, no, don’t, _don’t leave me!_ ”

 


	28. Chapter 28

Tony didn’t move. Tony wasn’t moving, wasn’t _breathing_.

“No,” said Rhodey numbly. “No, that... That can’t be right.”

“Tony, Tony… oh, _frell_ , Tony… Tony, no, no, _no_ , please no…” Bucky was clinging to his arm and there was nothing. No pulse under his fingers, just the arc-reactor, churning away because unlike Tony, the arc-reactor couldn’t be hurt, it couldn’t die, it would just keep right on running, buzzing uselessly.

“You dumb idiot,” Rhodey gasped. “I _told_ you to do this _days_ ago.”

The pain was bigger than he was. Bigger than he could give voice to. All Bucky could do was sit there, numbly, still holding Tony’s wrist as the fingers went loose and lax.

“Look,” Maya said. She pointed. The orange glow was still spreading, oozing slowly across Tony’s torso. “It’s still working.”

“What?” Rhodey said. “What does that mean?”

“The nanites won’t work on mortified tissue,” Maya said. “If they’re still replicating, still spreading, that means there’s still hope.”

“Come on, baby,” Bucky prayed, even if he had no idea who he was praying to. “Come on, _breathe_ , dren it all to frell.”

They watched, barely daring to breathe themselves, as the orange glow sparked across Tony’s skin, like the lick of fire over paper, purifying, healing. _Changing_ him.

“C’mon, Tones,” Rhodey was saying. “I did not fly my ass halfway across the galaxy to end up havin’ to babysit your hazmot bots for the rest of my life.”

Another flicker, another surge of orange, and the black marks seeped slowly out of Tony’s skin, leaving behind a perfect, unmarked cheek.

Tony’s fingers twitched.

“Come on, Tony,” Maya muttered. “This is the worst of it, you just have to hold on a little longer...”

Tony’s eyes flew open and he flailed in the restraints, gasping in a huge breath, as if he’d been underwater for long minutes. The orange glow completely surrounded the arc reactor, and suddenly it spread even faster, as if it were chasing down the remnants of the poison.

Bucky wasn’t even aware that he was crying until tears pattered down onto Tony’s arm, sizzling up into thin wisps of steam. “Oh, oh, Tony,” Bucky gasped. It wasn’t over, he knew it wasn’t over, not by a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, the worst was past.

Tony dragged in another hoarse breath, but his hand groped around until it closed on Bucky’s hand. “Bucky?” he rasped. He looked at Bucky as if he wasn’t entirely certain he could trust what he saw.

“I’m here, baby, I’m right here,” Bucky said. He squeezed Tony’s fingers, hoping Tony could feel the pressure. “Oh, dren, honey, I’m right here.”

“No faith,” Maya said. “I should be insulted.” She scowled, but behind that, Bucky could see the same relief they were all feeling. Well, probably not Tony, because hopefully he didn’t know just how close he’d scraped the line between life and death.

“You lied,” Tony told Maya. “About the pain. It’s -- _frell_ \-- so much worse than you said.” It ended on a whine that spiraled up into a whimper. Tony writhed uncomfortably, never loosening his grip on Bucky’s hand. “So much... worse.”

“It’ll get better,” Bucky promised. “Soon enough, this will just all be a bad dream. I’m here. I’m gonna stay right here with you, the whole time.”

“We’re pretty much remaking your entire body from spare parts,” Maya told Tony, crisply. “You didn’t keep the starting material in very good shape, either. Give it a few hours; when your heart gets stronger, I’ll be able to give you something to ease the pain. In the meanwhile, close your eyes, concentrate on breathing. And try to figure out _pi_ to the last digit.”

Bucky scowled. Even he knew the answer to that one. But maybe it would keep Tony occupied for a few minutes, working his brain instead of thinking about nothing but the pain. Each breath, it would get easier, as his body adapted to the new enhancements, as his pain tolerance got higher, as his body healed. It would get better. They just needed to wait it out.

Waiting it out turned out to be harder than expected.

For someone who had been involved in as much pain and suffering as the Winter Soldier, who’d been through so much agony on his own, Bucky was finding it really frelling difficult to bear witness to Tony’s pain.

The out and out screaming had mostly stopped -- mostly -- although as each of his major organs was taken over by the Extremis enhancements, Tony would have a bad bout again.

“Screaming doesn’t even help,” Tony complained, after a particularly terrible spell of about twenty minutes when he practically shrieked himself hoarse. “Just can’t seem to help it.”

Bucky just nodded. _As long as he’s screaming, he’s still alive._

The second injection was somehow worse. Tony stopped screaming, but he also stopped talking. He whimpered from time to time, a low, pathetic sound that made Bucky’s heart squeeze every single time he made it. And for quite a long time, Tony wept, sobbing steadily. Bucky did his best, used some of their precious water supplies to keep Tony’s face clean, comforted him, squeezed Tony’s fingers.

Rhodey was convinced to go to the galley and get food that no one could manage to eat much of, picking at the calories listlessly.

He found out the hard way that Tony was, quite literally, depending on him. Tony had fallen into a drowse, not quite sleeping, but close enough. Bucky took advantage of the few minutes of peace to use the facilities and stretch cramped muscles and Tony was screaming like frell by the time Bucky made it back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” Bucky said, shoving his fingers back into Tony’s grip and kissing his forehead. Tony calmed again, but Bucky was already convinced. No more leaving, not even for a few minutes. “I’m right here. Right here, baby.”  

Tony clung to Bucky’s hand with a desperate strength that made Bucky’s knuckles crack and his bones creak. “Sorry,” he panted. “Sorry, I just, I need...”

“I know, honey, I know.” He wished he’d had someone to hold his hand, when it had been his turn. Instead of locked in the black and left to live or die with no one really caring. He could, he would, do this for Tony, and he was grateful to be able to do it. “I got you. I love you. I’m here.”

The chrono crawled. Whole months seemed to pass and Bucky would glance up to see that it was only a few minutes. Rhodey spend a few hours holding Tony’s hand while Bucky kept his fingers on Tony’s knee. He didn’t leave, kept himself in Tony’s line of sight the whole time, just enough to let Maya help him eat and drink. He felt a little ridiculous, letting Maya feed him like he was a frelling baby bird, but what else could he do, one arm down?

Tony could do neither. Sometimes he’d manage to suck a piece of ice, just enough moisture to keep his mouth from cracking, to soothe his aching throat.

He gritted his teeth and reported that he thought the Extremis nanites had made their way into his bones. “I haven’t felt aches like this since puberty. Except it’s all over, all at once. This sucks. You didn’t tell me I’d have to go through puberty again on fast forward.” He grunted at an apparently large surge, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. “I can tell you that regular customers are going to want to be knocked out for this whole process.”

“Regular customers can do the whole series over time; twenty injections over the better part of a year or more,” Maya said. “Have a day once a month or so when you feel crappy, and then it’s all over. I personally know women who go through worse than that just getting into their Spanx in the morning.” She gave Tony a nudge. “Not even to mention it may be possible to add a regeneration process so that the nanites will be passed along to any offspring. Painless reproduction, baby comes pre-bonded.”

“There’s a-- oh, frell, _owwwww_. A selling point,” Tony managed. His hand spasmed in Bucky’s grip, and then went slack again. “I think it’s tapering off,” he reported. “Dren, I hope so.”

Bucky checked the chrono again. Finally. They were moving into the last few hours. “Yeah, baby, not much longer to go.”

He kept his hand in Tony’s, but laid his head down on the side of the bed, eyes aching, head throbbing. Just a few minutes. He’d close his eyes for a few minutes, that was all…

Somewhere in there, he slipped effortlessly into sleep.

***

Tony opened his eyes and for a moment, he didn’t know where he was, didn’t recognize the ceiling above him or the feel of the air. Then he remembered.

He didn’t seem to be in any pain. That was a relief. And then he stopped and reconsidered that, because he didn’t seem to be in _any_ pain, not even the minor aches and stiffness that he was accustomed to feeling on waking up.

He lifted one hand and stared at it. It was unquestionably his hand, but the skin seemed tighter, more elastic. Most of the small scars that dotted his fingers had disappeared, and he wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought the few that remained might be smaller and more faded than they had been.

He tried to lift his other hand as well, only to be stopped by the grip on it. Bucky, he realized.

He looked down, and there was Bucky, hand clasped around Tony’s, head pillowed on his folded arm, face turned toward Tony’s like a flower chasing the sun. A burst of warmth and love unfolded in Tony’s chest, just behind the arc reactor. Bucky had stayed through the entire ordeal. Tony could remember moments of searing pain where the only thing he knew at all was Bucky’s touch.

Tony sat up, grateful to whomever had unfastened the restraints as he slept, and brushed his free hand over Bucky’s hair. “Sweetheart,” he said softly. “Wake up, honey. That looks terribly uncomfortable.”

Bucky made a sleepy noise and burrowed his face against Tony’s hip. Then. “Oh!” He pushed up from the bed. His stump flailed, circling, and then he got himself upright, brushing his face against his shoulder, awkwardly trying to blink sleep dust from his eyelashes. “You’re awake. You actually slept a little. How… how are you feeling?”

“I feel good,” Tony said. “I feel _really_ good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good before in my life.” He leaned in to kiss Bucky gently. “Thank you. That can’t have been easy.”

Bucky opened his mouth as if to dismiss it, then nodded, ruefully. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I wish I could have taken it away from you.” His eyes were expressive, pained, soft and full of compassion.

“It’s over now,” Tony promised. He turned, swung his legs over the side of the medbunk. “I’m _starving_ , though. Come on, let’s go raid the galley, and then we’ll go see if your new arm is ready.”

“If I might suggest, sir,” JARVIS said, “I have had DUM-E bring a delivery of clothing for you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at the nearest speaker, then shifted back to gaze at Tony, obviously checking him out. “I dunno, he can walk around mostly naked all th’ time if he wants, I’m okay with that.”

Tony grinned. “Ditto that, but probably somewhere that we won’t disturb Rhodey’s delicate sensibilities. I’d hate to have him throw us off his ship mid-jump just because he got an eyeful.”

Bucky laughed and slid his arm around Tony’s waist, pulling him up against Bucky’s side and kissing his cheek. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” He seemed lighter, less gloomy than he had just hours ago. Relief was a powerful tool, and Bucky’s entire body was painted with it, letting him stand straighter and look happier.

“I should inform you, sir, that we are responding to an offer of sanctuary from Nicholas Fury, Director of the planetary chain Triskelion. On current course, we should arrive within twenty more hours.”

“Hear that, honey? Twenty hours ‘til we can breathe free again.” He batted his eyelashes ridiculously. “I bet we’ll get to take a real bath, too.”

Bucky hummed, contentedly. The galley was occupied by Maya and Rhodey, who were taking turns playing some complicated shipboard game, bouncing an imaginary figure across the room at each other.

“Hey, man,” Rhodey said as they came in. “Are you feeling better, Tones, ‘cause I owe you a smack for scaring the frell out of us, last night. Thought you dren well _died_ or something. Gave me a heart attack, trying to compose that message to Pepper.” He gave Bucky a conspiratorial wink. “Piece of advice if you’re gonna try to live with this idiot? Get on Pepper Potts’ good side. You’ll live longer, be happier, and stay healthier.”

“That,” Tony said, “is sound advice. Pepper rules us both with an iron fist. Or maybe shoe.” He stepped out of the curve of Bucky’s arm to pull Rhodey into a hug. “Thanks,” he said, meaning very much more, and knowing Rhodey would understand. “I feel like a new man,” he added. “Which, depending on the theory you go with, might actually be true.”

 


	29. Epilogue

Nick Fury was waiting for them when _War Machine_ touched down. Probably less eager for their company and more methodical about space and planetary law.

By the code, each ship was under its own rule, as decided by the captain. Ship crew were only subject to planetary law when docked, which was why such places as Knowhere could exist. As a powered moon, the entire moon claimed status as a ship and was thus under its own law.

Of course, no ship could be entirely a law under itself, because ships needed to dock regularly. Even the best, most efficient generational vessel needed a place to call home port. And no ship could dock without planetary permission.

By meeting them at the landing and personally offering sanctuary before they put a foot planetside or took a breath of air that wasn’t recycled or canned, Fury was making sure every i was dotted and every t was crossed.

And Fury was nothing if not a little bit of a showman. The scene of him greeting two Stark Industry enhanciles, the former Fist of Hydra, and a decorated Galactic Air Force colonel would be one for the history books and move the Triskelion planetary chain onto the map as being of strategic importance.

“Director,” Tony said as they came off the ramp. He extended his hand, a showman’s smile on his face. “I appreciate your hospitality.”

“Mr. Stark,” Fury said, clasping his hand. “You’ve become part of a bigger universe, you just don’t know it, yet.”  He nodded. “Welcome to Triskellion. As the Director and a full member of the Galactic Council, I offer asylum and sanctuary while the matter of your citizenship and basic humanity is debated on the floor as if it were so much tax revenue. You have both our full support and the might of the Triskelion fleet behind you.”

“Thank you,” Tony said, loud enough for the watching infocrews. “On behalf of myself and my friends, let us hope that the rest of the Council chooses to embrace your wisdom.” Then he lowered his voice and added, “Please tell us we can collapse for a day or two before we have to go be diplomatic. It was a long trip.”

Fury clapped him on the back. “I’ve had guest suites put aside for you in the Embassy row. The Galactic Council has made a decision that I should turn you over immediately, but as it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it. They’re debating an official reprimand, but as the majority of their ships come from our asteroid belt mining, I’m ignoring that, too. Give them a few days to realize exactly what the economic impact would be of Triskelion refusing to do business with them at all, and we’ll get some momentum. In the meanwhile, you can rest, recover, and get the word out to any other refugees you know that might look good supporting the cause.”

“I know of a few,” Tony admitted. “If they’ll take my calls.”

“Captain Rogers will take my call,” Bucky put in. “We just gotta locate th’ _Avenger_. Hitting a moving target with a comm-beam is beyond my skill set.”

“I’ll make the call, you do the talking,” Tony said. “We’ll want to call Aunt Peggy, too; she’ll know how to contact other enhanciles who want to stand with us. And we’ll call the Odinsons together. I have a feeling Asgard will stand behind us, and they’re not an insignificant ally.”

Tony turned his head to look at the throngs that had gathered, hundreds of supporters, just there on the landing pad. Thousands in the spaceport. Millions, even billions on a single planet.

And there were other planets, dozens of them, who were offering support. Some for their own gain, getting points with the Triskelion shipyards and others for political ideals. Others for the promise of Extremis; Pepper Potts had been dotting the wave for a few days now, on the advantages for people on every planet, not just a select few soldiers and warriors. An end to disease and pain, a cure for those illness which were taking children from parents, wives from husbands, lovers from friends.

Tony nodded decisively. “We’re going to do this,” he said.

Bucky took Tony’s hand, and waved his new prosthetic in the direction of the crowds. “We’re gonna change the galaxy.”

 


End file.
